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THE SPREAD OF
CHRISTIANi I III
PAUL HUTCHiNSON ,.,1
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Hutchinson, Paul, 1890-
The spread of Christianity
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WEEK-DAY SCHOOL SERIES GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, Editor
THE SPREAD OF
CHRISTIANITY
BY
PAUL HUTCHINSON
THE ABINGDON PRESS

NEW YORK CINCINNATI
Cop3n-ight, 1922, by
PAUL HUTCHINSON
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America

To
LYNN HAROLD HOUGH

AT WHOSE TOUCH
THE PAST SPRINGS TO LIFE

THE PRESENT TAKES MEANING
AND THE FUTURE BECKONS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Preface 5
The Christian Message in the Mediterranean
World 7
11. Christianity Faces the Danger of Success 16
III. The Break-Up of the Roman Empire 24
IV. The Winning of Northern Europe 33
V. The Popes Come to Power 42
VI. The Later Church in the East 51
VII. Christianity's Greatest Rival 60
VIII. The Church Goes to War 69
IX. Life and Worship in the Medi/EVAL Church .... 77
X. Church and State 85
XI. The Dawn of a New Age 94
XII. New Channels for Christianity's Spread 102
XIII. The Roman Theory of the Church Challenged iio
XIV. Catholicism Enters New Worlds 120
XV. Who Was to Spread Christianity? 129
XVI. —
Geneva A City for God 137
XVII. The Reformation in England and Scotland .... 146
XVIII. Early Missionaries in the Americas 156
XIX. Protestantism Faces the Wider World 164
XX. Methodism Brings New Energy 172
XXI. Spreading Religion in America 180
XXII. Christianity in Modern India 188
XXIII. China and Christianity 197
XXIV. The Approach to Islam 205
XXV. The Cross in the Japanese Empire 213
XXVI. In the Dark Continent 221
XXVII. Religion in Latin-America 229
XXVIII. Other Fields for Christianity's Advance 237
XXIX. The American Churches 244
XXX. Modern Catholicism 252
XXXI. How Christianity is Spread 260
XXXII. Christianity To-day and To-morrow 267
Aids in the Study of This Book 275
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Extent of Christianity About 600 a. d Frontispiece

FACING PAGE
The Church in the Life of Mediaeval Europe 82
Jerusalem, the Center of the Universe 104
Luther Before the Diet at Worms 117
Wesley Preaching in Wales 176
India's Response to the Gospel 193
The Challenge of Mohammedanism to Christianity 209
The Extent of Christianity, 1920 a. d 269

PREFACE
Of the making of church histories there seems to be
no end, nor of the discovery of new facts that have a
bearing on the story. The only reason for a new text,
in view of the adequate volumes that already exist, is
the hope of winning the interest of a new group in —
this case, pupils in the eleventh grade of the American
school.
In writing for this group (which is generally found
in the sophomore or junior years of the high school) no
effort has been made to mention all the facts, or even
all the names, that must be included in any complete
record of the Christian enterprise. It is conceivable
that some church historians, chancing on this book,
might be overwhelmed by its omissions. To any such
it can only be said that the omissions have been
deliberate.
The attempt has been to throw into bold relief the
significant developments in Christian history since the
days of Constantine. Christianity as a growing power
is the theme, with the hope that young Christians may
find some pride in belonging to a body that, with all its

long traditions, lives ever on the move. Likewise, the
spread of Christianity has been presented, not as some
unique phenomenon in a water-tight compartment of its
own, but as an integral part of the movement of all
history. The repetition of much that is included in
the usual school course seems justified if this branch of
history is to be seen in its proper frame.
In every case the publishers named in the footnotes
5
6 PREFACE
have generously granted permission to quote from the

books mentioned.
The cooperation of the editors and publishers of the
Abingdon Series of Week-Day Religious Education
Texts is gratefully acknowledged.
Teachers of this course will find added material and
suggested methods of approach and treatment in the
Teacher's Manual soon to follow this text.
So the book goes forth, with all its shortcomings.
May these not mar
for any the challenge of the Chris-
tian adventure, hard-bound toward the establishment
of a universal kingdom. For there is ever a place for
any youth that would share in that high endeavor.
The Author.
CHAPTER I
THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE IN THE

MEDITERRANEAN WORLD
From its birth Christianity has prospered as it has
traveled. The days of its missionary vigor have been
the days of its Ahnost the last authen-
greatest power.
tic echo from the Founder centers about the
life of its
imperative "Go!" and it has seemed as though the
destiny of the gospel were bound up with the degree
of fidelity that the church has shown that command.
It is our purpose to trace the process by which Chris-
tianity developed from a small sect within the Jewish
faith to a religion spread throughout the continents.
We will not find a story of unimpeded advance. We
will —
encounter defeats, retreats, and what is perhaps
worse — periods of self-centered stupor. But we will
find, after twenty centuries, a vast body of believers
and multiplying agencies, inspired by common ideals,
owning allegiance to a common Lord, and moving ever
toward distant horizons.
The Christian Message Enters the World

What the Christian message? Christianity has
is —
spread because it has brought men such a message as
they have heard nowhere else. For that reason it is

well for us to ask, as a foundation for our study, what
the Christian message is.
It was first given form by Jesus, a member of the
Hebrew tribe of Judah, who came from the town
7
8 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
of Nazareth, preaching throughout Judasa during the
early years of the Roman Empire. Jesus followed in
the line of the Hebrew prophets, proclaiming the neces-
sity for inner righteousness that should express itself
in a life able to stand the most searching ethical tests.
He found the impulse for such a life in the realization
of the character of God, whom he spoke of as always
actuated by motives of love and good will, and directly
interested in the spiritual welfare of every human
being. His conception of God was epitomized in the
term by which he habitually spoke of the Deity, a
term that has become characteristic of Christian devo-
tion: "the heavenly Father."
Jesus taught that the heavenly Father is seeking a
regenerated human society, to which he gives the
name of "the kingdom of God," or "the kingdom of
heaven," and conceived it as distinctively his mission
to lead men into the understanding of God that he
himself possessed, and so into membership in this
kingdom. Such relationship with God, Jesus prom-
ised, would result in transformation of life, both in-
wardly and outwardly, and ultimately in transformation
of all human society.
After a brief career as a teacher Jesus came into
conflict with the conservative religious forces of his
own nation. To some extent the universality of his
outlook brought this to pass; to some extent his claim
to possession of unique spiritual truth outside the
bounds of the established church. The Roman adminis-
tration of Palestine was induced to regard the teacher
from Nazareth as a disturber of the pubhc order, and
he was crucified.
The message of Jesus begins to spread. The —
execution of Jesus was one more instance of the answer
THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE 9
that authority is generally moved to make to agitation.

In however, the application of force failed
this case,
to put an end to the new ideas that had come out of
Galilee, Declaring that they had knowledge that
Jesus had risen from the dead, as an evidence of the
truth of his teaching and the validity of his claim to
be the Messiah (or, in Greek, the Christ), the group
of followers who had formed about Jesus by the time
of his death formed a band within the Jewish church
marked by evangelistic fervor and philanthropic effort.
There must have been about a hundred in this group
of original disciples, among whom the eleven who had
been most intimately in association with Jesus naturally
took the leadership. Among these apostles, as they
are known to history, Peter stood out at the beginning
by reason of the boldness of his preaching, which led
to great additions to the community of believers at
Pentecost and after.
Within a few months or years (it is difficult to
determine the precise chronology of this portion of
the story), this group had grown to such size, and
had so disturbed the conservative elements within the
Jewish Church by the radicalism of its teaching, that
it was practically forced to separate places and forms
of worship, and was subjected to persecution. This
persecution drove out of Jerusalem many of the pro-
fessed believers in Christ, and these, in the language
of the New Testament, "went everywhere (through
Palestine) preaching the word." Thus began the
diffusion of the Christian message.
The first approach to the Gentile world. — Some of
the more adventurous of these refugees from Jerusalem,
or those who had relatives in the Jewish quarters of
Gentile cities, pushed beyond the borders of Palestine.
lo THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
The first contact with this vast Gentile life came
within Palestine itself, when a Roman centurion,
already in some touch with the Jewish faith, received
baptism at the hand of Peter. This apostle thus became
the champion of the element that opposed the poUcy
of restricting the Christian message to the Hebrews.
Others followed his lead, and soon there were followers
of Jesus banded together in many of the great cities
of Asia Minor. Of these the most important was
Antioch, the great trade center of the eastern part
of the Roman Empire. Here a remarkable group was
gathered in the infant church, and here the necessity
for some distinguishing name first resulted in the appli-
cation of the term "Christian."
These Christians in Antioch were largely Jews who
possessed the cultural advantages of that Greek civil-
ization that had been so determinedly repulsed from

Palestine. They felt the urge of all the lands bordering
the Mediterranean, and it was not long before two
of their leadershad been sent to bear the Christian
message to their brethren in the other cities of the
Dispersion.
Paul takes the gospel to Rome.—The larger part of
the book of Acts deals with the labors of the greater
of these two Antiochan missionaries. This was Saul,
a native of Tarsus, who soon, in his wanderings about
the Roman world, became known as Paul.
Paul combined with a thorough grounding in Jewish
theology the outlook of a Roman citizen and the cul-
ture of a home in a Greek city. As a result, when he
turned to Christianity he was fitted to give the new
faith its first formulated doctrine, and to respond to
the inherent internationalism of the teaching of Jesus.
So it was that, from the day when he left Antioch
THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE ii
upon the first of his three great missionary journeys,

Paul felt the call of his world so compellingly that
before he suffered martyrdom he had seen the Chris-
tian message carried to the Roman provinces of Asia
Minor, to the leading cities of Greece, to islands such
as Cyprus and Crete, to imperial Rome and minor
cities of Italy, and perhaps even to Spain.
At the beginning of his ministry Paul confined his
labors to the Jews found in the cities he visited. These
provided a natural constituency in which to preach
of one who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah. But
when the Jews refused to accept his gospel, Paul did
not hesitate to extend his invitation to the Gentiles.
After a brief but intense struggle he won the church
to support of his position. When he died he left Chris-
tianity planted in the capital of the world of that day,
and committed to a pohcy of universalism. So influ-
ential, in fact,had he been in rescuing the new faith
from the parochiahsm threatened by its Jewish ante-
cedents, that some have claimed that Paul, rather than
Jesus, should be regarded as the founder.
The Struggle for the Mediterranean

In the early Christian writings that form the New
Testament, frequent references will be found to the
proposed extension of the gospel throughout "the
world." It is doubtful if the first-century writers
employed that term same sense in which it would
in the
be used to-day. Geography was a very restricted
science in those days. In fact, compared with our
present geographical knowledge,it remained restricted
hundred years after the days of Saint Paul.

for fifteen
The world of the early Christians. The world that —
the New Testament writers knew, and of which they
thought when they employed the term, was practically
coextensive with the Roman Empire. The first phase
of Christian history, therefore, consisted of the effort
to evangehze this world. As wiU be seen by a glance
at any map, the Roman Empire was composed largely
of the lands that bordered Mediterranean Sea.
the
To be sure, the imperial eagles were carried to Gaul,
Germany, and Britain. But control in these provinces
was always disputed. Roman civilization really gripped
only the lands about the Mediterranean.
The story of the first three hundred years of Chris-
tianity concerned the penetration of these lands by the
gospel. been told in detail in another volume
It has
in this series.^ Here it is sufficient to say that the
campaign Saint Paul launched continued with increasing
power, despite severe repressive measures, until
Constantine, the greatest of the emperors to make his
capital in the city named after him, Constantinople,
placed the sign of the cross upon his imperial banners
and gave Christianity legal standing as a permitted,
and even favored, religion.
On his death-bed, Constantine was baptized. The
year 313 is generally remembered as the year in which
Christianity won its struggle for dominance in the
Roman Empire, for it was in that year that the Edict
of Milan, granting toleration, was signed.
Early Christian worship. When Justin Martyr —
wrote his Apology, in the middle of the second
century, Christian worship as he described it was a
very simple thing: "On Sunday a meeting is held of
all who live in the cities and villages, and a section
is read from the memoirs of the Apostles and the
writings of the Prophets, as long as the time per-
'See The Early Days of Christianity, The Abingdon Press, by Frederick C. Grant.
mits. When the reading has finished, the president,

in a discourse (or homily) gives the admonition and
exhortation to imitate these noble things. After this
we all arise and offer a common prayer. At the close
of the prayer, aswe have before described, bread and
wine and water are brought. The president offers
prayer and thanks for them according to his ability,
and the congregation answers, 'Amen.' Then the con-
secrated elements are distributed to each one and
partaken of, and are carried by the deacons to the
houses of the absent. The wealthy and the willing
then give contributions according to their free will;
and this collection is deposited with the president,
who therewith supplies orphans and widows, the poor
and needy, prisoners and strangers, and takes care of
all who are in want."
The development a church organization.
of —
While the Christian message was thus sweeping around
the Mediterranean, and even penetrating into Meso-
potamia, Persia, Media, Parthia, Bactria, and Britain,
the church itself was developing from the group of
single-minded enthusiasts, with a simple, direct form of
worship, to a complex organization, with symbolic and
sometimes even secret rites. In part this came from a
desire to protect the precious elements in the Christian
faith from unworthy outside influences; in part it was
the effect of those influences, particularly of the elab-
orate rituals of worship that marked the many mystery
religions then competing for prominence in the Roman
world.
Various views have been advanced as to the precise
manner in which this development from the simplicity
of apostolic days to the intricacies of the established
church of Constantine's empire took place. It is
sufficient for our purpose to remember that "very
early in their existence the churches required for their
spiritual life certain officers. Thus overseers and
teachers were needed at once and they appeared as
bishops, or presbyters, or pastors. The care of the
poor and the proper distribution of alms led to the
appointment of deacons. Very soon, therefore, the
two great offices of the early church the pastorate —
and the diaconate were fixed. — The very ablest . . .
became the leader among his equals, and gradually

combined several functions in himself, and if his ability
sustained him, he became the chief source of power
and influence in the community. . . .
"Towns became centers varying in their influence

according to their size, the degree of their culture, their
historical position, and their geographical situation.
Questions too difficult or of too general interest to be
settled by local communities were carried up to synods
composed of representatives of all the communities,and
usually the ablest man presided at the sessions of the
synod. In the course of this process gradually and
naturally each member seemed to fall into his proper
place. The clergy and laity are separated, and ecclesi-
"^
astical orders arise.
By the reign of Constantine this development had
reached the point where the chief pastors of the churches
in important cities were regarded as bishops, where the
bishops in such citiesas Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome
had won recognition as archbishops, or metropolitans,
and where an extended and standardized form of wor-
ship and church life had won acceptance.
—
A lofty claim. What, then, was the condition of the
Christian Church at the beginning of our period of
1 Moncrief : A Short History of the Christian Church, F. H. Revell Co., pp. 49, 70.
study? Justin could claim that "There is not a single

j
race of human beings, barbarians, Greeks, or whatever I
name you please to call them, nomads or vagrants, or

herdsmen living in tents, where prayers in the name
of Jesus the crucified are not offered up." We know
within what narrow geographical limits the early Chris-
tian writers were thinking when they made such state-
ments, but it is clear that by the opening of the
fourth century, Christianity had spread from an incon-
siderable group of enthusiasts within the Jewish religion
to a highly organized system of worship and doctrine
that had penetrated throughout the Roman Empire,
and could even require the approval of Constantine on
the throne.
Suggestions for Discussion

1. From what other religion did Christianity emerge,
and what were its points of likeness to the parent faith?
2. What, in the minds of his fellow countrymen, was
regarded as new in the teaching of Jesus?

3. What evidences can be shown of the statesmanship
of Saint Paul?
4. Was the spread of Christianity hastened or de-
layed by the presence of Jewish communities in the
cities of the Roman Empire? by the strong government
of Rome? by the widespread use of Greek?
5. To what extent had Christianity conquered the
world by the opening of the fourth century?
6. What was the worship and organization of the
Christian Church like in the days of Constantine?
CHAPTER II
CHRISTIANITY FACES THE DANGER

OF SUCCESS
"Nothing succeeds like success!" quotes one man.
"Perhaps; but nothing is as dangerous as success,"
maintains another, with a clearer view of the lessons
of history.
With the signing of the imperial edict granting
toleration, Christianity upon a new phase.
entered
Gone were the days when meetings had to be held in
secret places; gone was the menace of persecution and
martyrdom. But in place of those dangers there arose
others, more subtle, yet more destructive. Christianity
was struggling with these inner perils all through the
fourth century.
Christianity a Favored Religion

Constantine the Christian.— Although Constantine
granted the Christian Church full rights in 313, and
became a candidatefor membership in the church about
the time he founded his capital at Constantinople, he
was not actually baptized until the year of his death, 337.
However, Christianity was clearly the favored religion
of the court throughout his reign. Although he re-
tained the title of pontifex maximus, or high priest
of the old pagan worship of Rome, Constantine allowed
only Christian worship at Constantinople and built
many churches in various parts of his empire. Also,
as weshall see, he frequently exercised the imperial
powers within the affairs of the church.
16
THE DANGER OF SUCCESS 17
Why did Constantinc thus favor Christianity, break-

ing with the pohcy of all the emperors who had gone
before him? The story of his battle at the Milvian
Bridge, when he adopted the sign of the cross, is
famiMar.^ But why was he ready to adopt that sign?

We discover the answer to that question when we
remember that Constantine came from the extreme
western part of the Roman Empire to the rule of
the whole. He felt that Rome was too far from the
center to make a proper capital, and so built a new
imperial city where Europe and Asia met. He felt
the pressure being exerted upon the empire from with-
out by barbarian tribes, and he saw the disintegration
that soft living and loose thinking were bringing within.
He realized that some unifying principle must be found
if this huge empire was to be held together much longer,
and that this principle must be moral if it was to purge

the life of his realm of its inner rottenness. For this
reason he embraced the religion that had shown its
power to mold every part of the empire. Con-

lives in
stantine's conversion, if such it can be called, was a
piece of statesmanship of the highest order.
Baptized pagans.— The effect of the Emperor's con-
version was seen immediately throughout the empire.
For one thing, it became fashionable to be a Christian.
Baptism became, not the outward sign of an inner
spiritual experience, but a means to imperial favor.
Thousands rushed to enter the Christian fold.
Probably there were bishops and presbyters who
saw in this great ingathering the fulfillment of early
Christian prophecies of a time when the worship of
Jesus should be universal. If they had not been dazzled
by appearances, they would have been frightened
'See, for example, SchafE's History of the Christian Church, ii, 2o5.
i8 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
rather than have rejoiced. For these new church
members were only so many baptized pagans, who
brought with them to the fellowship of the church all
their old debauchery, worldliness, and an utter lack of
any appreciation of the meaning of the message or
life of Jesus. Far from being a blessing, the addition
of these unspiritualized thousands must be regarded as
a major cause of the stagnation that settled upon the
church, and remained during the centuries we know
as the Dark Ages.
The Church as a Political Instrument

The "catholic" church idea favored. — Constantine,
as we have seen, saw in Christianity a unifying force
to tie his scattered realms together. But this required
that the church be a unit. And the Emperor had
itself
not gone far in his relations with the new religion before
he found that this was far from the case.
It is not our purpose here to go into the details of
the struggles over doctrinal points that were to furnish
so much of the history of the church during ensuing
centuries. Our course is concerned with the spread
of Christianity, and Christianity has done little spread-
ing while all its energies have been devoted to theolog-
ical disputations. But we can see, here in the reign
of Constantine, the beginning of the struggle between
"catholic" and "heretic" that was to result in wars,
exiles, and executions, and the branching out of Chris-
tian truth (and sometimes error) in unexpected ways
and to unexpected places.
The idea of a "catholic" church came to the fore
as Christianity toward power in the third
pressed
century. The name, which means all-embracing, defines
the theory. It was precisely such a conception as
Constantine was seeking. It meant to bind all congre-

gations in all lands into one body, acknowledging the
authority of one statement of truth, and excluding
from the fellowship and privileges of true Christians all
who might, in any detail, differ from this statement.

The Emperor was quick to make these privileges of
the "catholic"church worth considering. For not
only were great churches built and the basilicas (build-
ings something akin to a courthouse) of the Roman
cities turned over to the Christian congregations, but
the clergy were exempted from certain taxes, were
permitted to receive bequests, were given certain
judicial powers, and were licensed to harry to the point
of death any heretics who taught in disagreement to
the accepted, or orthodox, doctrine.
—
Catholic versus heretic. It is interesting to see how
Constantine, in his effort to weld the empire through
a catholic church, brought on the first clear-cut division
between orthodoxy and heresy. About the year 320
reports were brought to the Emperor of an uproar
that was being fomented in and about the city of Alex-
andria by a dispute between the bishop Alexander and
one of the clergy, Anus. Alexander found a champion
in a young priest, Athanasius, and he waged wordy
warfare for years with Arius over the question as to
whether the Father and the Son in the Christian Trinity
were identical in nature, or whether the Father had
created the Son, thus making the latter subordinate
to the former. It was really, as can be seen, a struggle
to define the place of Jesus in Christian thinking, and
the controversy soon raged throughout all the eastern
half of the empire.
Constantine was no theologian. He did not sense
the gravity of the issues at stake. It seemed to him
—
20 THE SPREAD OR CHRISTIANITY

that a word from the throne ought to be sufficient to
stop all this uproar, and accordingly he wrote Bishop
Alexander as follows: "There is a new discord. And
there is no real ground for it. The subjects in dispute
are trivial. I offer myself as an arbiter. ... It is a pity
that the question was ever raised. No Christianity
requires the investigation of such subjects; they arise
from the disputatious cavils of ill-employed leisure.
Few can understand these difficult matters in which
there ought to be mutual tolerance. In reality you
are agreed. Return to your former charity and restore
to me my quiet days and tranquil nights, or you will
force me weep and to despair of any personal peace."^
to
A Christian creed adopted. Unfortunately for —
Constantine's sleep, it took more than an imperial
letter to end this debate. A church gathering in Alex-
andria condemned Arius, and denied him the right
to preach his doctrines in the churches. So he took
to the open air, set his ideas to music, and soon had
the streets and markets resounding with popular songs
setting forth his position.
Finally Constantine determined to end it all by
gathering the bishops of the church in a general council
that was held at Nicea, about twenty-five miles from
his capital. We cannot describe this gathering in
detail,although it must have been one of the most
remarkable in Christian history. An early Christian
historian, Eusebius, tells how the three hundred and
eighteen bishops, all but ten of whom were from the
eastern part of the empire, came with their attendants
as fast as they could run, in a frenzy of excitement
and enthusiasm. And another sketches them: ''The
old and the young, the learned and the unlearned
>From Socrates, Ecclesiaslical History, quoted by Moncrief, op. cit.
:
from city, from forest and from caves in the mountains.

Many of them came bearing the marks of Diocletian's
persecution, with eyeless sockets, scarred faces, twisted
and withered limbs, and paralyzed hands. "^
Under the presidency of an emperor who was not
yet even a baptized Christian, and certainly knew but
little of the issues at stake, this gathering proceeded,
after long debate, to condemn the Arian position, and
to draw up the first generally accepted Christian creed.
Not as a complete or final statement of Christian
teaching, but as a first attempt at such a statement,
it is interesting to study what those three hundred and
eighteen bishops of the fourth century (some of them with
mental reservations) signed as embodying their creed
We believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Maker

of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only
begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God
from God, Light from Light, very God from very God,
begotten not made, of the same substance with the
Father, through whom all things were made, who for
us men and our salvation, came down and was incarnate,
and became man, suffered and rose again the third day,
ascended to heaven and will come to judge the living
and the dead; and in the Holy Ghost.
Those who say that there was when He was not, and
that He was made from things that are not or from
another substance or nature, saying that the Son of
God is changed or changeable, the Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic church anathematizes.
Christianity Outside the Roman Empire

Missionary effort by heretics. —
One unexpected
result of this Council of Nicea, which placed the curse
'Moncrief, Op. cit., p. 134.
of the orthodox church on the followers of Anus, was
the beginning of missionary work among the barbarian
tribes of and northern Europe who were so
central
soon to overwhelm the western part of the Roman
Empire.
Thrust out of the churches where the authority of
the Emperor was supreme, the Arians went preaching
along the northern shores of the Black Sea, where
some were captured by Goths. These, under the
leadership of a missionary named Ulfilas, were con-
verted to an Arian form of Christianity, and later from
the Goths the gospel, in this form, spread to the Vandals.
So it happened that when these peoples swept down
over the cities of Italy, they came not as utter bar-
barians, but as Christians, the shortcomings of whose
practice was probably of less detriment to their faith
than the degenerate supineness of the Christians they
conquered.
Before the end of the fifth century Christianity had
reached the Franks, that race destined to decide the
fate of Europe. But it was Catholic Christianity that
won the Franks, and so, finally, overcame the Arian
influence among Goths and Vandals.
—
The last effort of paganism. We cannot close this
chapter without mentioning the Emperor Juhan, and
his futile attempt to revive the old worships. Julian
was a nephew of Constantine, who came to the throne
in 361, after the sons of Constantine had made a failure
of their attempts at rule. A man of high character,
Julian was disgusted at the hypocrisy he saw in those
who crowded into the Christian Church when it obtained
imperial favor. He repressed the churches and Chris-
tian clergy, and did what he could to restore the pagan
temples and philosophy.
Had Julian lived, he probably would have further

purified the church by another great persecution. But
he fell in battle two years after ascending the throne.
Perhaps he realized, before he died, the futility of his
efforts to destroy the march of the church to power.
At any rate, tradition represents him as crying out
at the moment of his death, "Thou hast conquered,
O GaUlaean!"

1.In what way was the conversion of Constantine
a good thing for the cause of Christianity? In what
way did it work harm?
2. Why did Constantine hope to find help in solidify-
ing his empire in Christianity?

3. Has heresy helped or hindered Christian advance?
4. What do you believe to be the best method of
dealing with heresy?
5. What would you select as the important ideas in
the Nicean creed? Why are these important? Do you
know any creed to-day that includes ideas from the
Nicean creed?
CHAPTER III
THE BREAK-UP OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

We come now to one of the periods when there was
little advance on the part of the church. Many have
even dismissed it as a time of retreat. To appreciate
this tragic time we must put ourselves in the place
of the Christians who Hved within what had been the
western part of the Roman Empire between the fifth
and the ninth centuries.
Let us suppose that we were the immediate descend-
ants of the men to whom had been given that mighty-
vision of a world conquered by a new religion. Let
us suppose that the courage and faith of our fathers
had brought this vision to fulfillment despite awful
persecution. Then
us suppose that, just as the
let
victory seemed won, ceased and our
as persecution
churches replaced the heathen temples, this whole
world we had been struggling to convert came crashing
down in ruin about us. And, through the din of that
disaster, suppose we heard voices declaring that we
had been guilty of destroying this civilization. Would
it not seem as if we were in the midst of some gigantic
nightmare, and would it not be natural if our forces

halted and turned from vigorous advance to personal
introspection?
The Long Battle Line

Maps of the Roman Empire in the days of the early
Caesars show it stretched out to include most of the
24
BREAK-UP OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 25
then known world. But this extent was won only by

the incessant valor of the legions, and even this did
not suffice to hold back the tribes of ''barbarians"
forever. By the time of the great Emperor Marcus
Aurelius — that is, before the end of the second century
—until the empire of the West had been swept away,
Rome was engaged in a battle to preserve her existence.
In many ways this struggle resembled that of the
World War. In the World War, as you will remember,
the so-called Central Empires faced the Allies on a
hne that ran from the Persian Gulf, and later the Bos-
phorus, to the North Sea. The Central Empires found
it necessary to withstand smashes, sometimes in
Flanders, sometimes in Asia Minor, and sometimes
in the Balkans. Finally they proved unable to hold
off this continuous pounding along such an extended Hne.
—
An early World War. For a rough approximation
to the battering that finally destroyed the western
Roman Empire, take this picture of the fighting in the
recent World War and turn it just around. Again run
the hne of battle from the Bosphorus to the North Sea.
Your map again shows you one civilization defending
itself in arms along the natural entrenchments pro-
vided by the Danube and Rhine. The great difference

is that, in this struggle of fifteen centuries ago, the
center of defense was south of the line, rather than north.
Who were the fighters? South of the line we naturally
say, Romans. But this judgment must be safe-
the
guarded by the reminder that the old Roman traditions
had disintegrated; that Rome now hired her defenders;
and that the men who marched behind her eagles
were, as often as not, German barbarians who would
spend their time when not fighting on the frontiers
fighting with each other for the privilege of ruling the
supine Romans. North of the line we see principally
Goths and Franks and those nomads who brought such
terror from the steppes of Asia, the Huns.
The barbarians break through. The Roman dis-—
missed all men outside the limits of his citizenship with
the contemptuous title, "barbarian." And there was
plenty in the character of these tribes that kept smash-
ing at the long Danube-Rhine line in accord with the
idea that we have given the adjective "barbarous."
However, great as were their shortcomings, they pos-
sessed some tremendous virtues. No one ever ques-
tioned their courage; they seemed able to call forth
physical strength for any undertaking; their daring
knew no bounds. And the life of mankind will never
advance fast or far unless those quaHties are in evidence.
The Rome that the barbarians smashed had largely
lost them.
The first break in the long line came only forty years
after the passing of Constantine. It was a result,
curiously enough, of an exhibition of strength by another
great civilization that the Romans scarcely knew
existed. For on the other side of the Continent of Asia
the Chinese thrust an impregnable defense before the
advance of wild tribes from the northern steppes. These
Huns were thus forced to turn west, and came pushing
across what is to-day Siberia and Russia until they
forced a smaller people, the West Goths, to cross the
Danube for safety. Immediately the Emperor Valens
came marching to repulse the attack on the sacred line,
but near Adrianople, in 378, the Roman army was
annihilated by the Goths and the Emperor killed. In
the language that became so familiar to us during the
World War, this was the first "break through" by the
barbarians.
BREAK-UP OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 2^
Rome in —
German hands. Now commenced a grim
struggle. For a time it would seem as if the empire,
under determined emperors and by the help of mer-
cenary bands, would be able to hold off further invasion,
and then the hammering at the long line would begin
again, and the invaders would come closer. To the
West Goths were added the East Goths, and to these
the Vandals. All these were Germanic tribes, and all
felt behind them the pressure of the Huns.
To make the problem of defense harder for the em-

perors, these barbarians were always on the move.
If they struck one time in the Balkans, they were likely
to strike next in what is now France. By the opening
of the fifth century the West Goths were pressing
into northern Italy. By 410 they had cleared from
before their path the last of the hired bands upon which
Rome rehed for salvation, and, under the leadership
of Alaric, took what had been proudly called the Eternal
City.
Now came a period of vast confusion. These German
tribeshad no idea of settling down to develop the
country they had conquered. The West Goths wan-
dered about through Gaul and then over into Spain,
despoiling as they went. In Spain they fought the
Vandals, who had moved south from the shores of the
Baltic, and the Vandals, when defeated, crossed the
found a kingdom in north Africa.
Straits of Gibraltar to
Later they sailed from Africa to sack Rome, an adven-
ture that appealed to all the loose-footed tribes who
now dominated Europe.
Meanwhile the Huns came pushing on. Romans and
West Goths combined to defeat them in France, but
they still had strength left to sweep down over Italy
to the gates of Rome. Under their leader, Attila, they
devastated the country in a manner that has made
their name dreadful during all the succeeding centuries.
But, for reasons which are now obscure, when the Huns
reached Rome they were persuaded by the head of the
Christian Church there, to turn back and, their leader
dying the next year, they soon passed off the stage of
great events.
On the Ruins of the Western Empire

In all this confusion the western Roman Empire
passed away. To be sure, for centuriesafter men
tried to keep up the fiction of being ruled from Con-
stantinople, but the real Roman Empire, that came
to birth with Augustus Caesar, that pushed its roads
and its laws and its officers and its teachers and its
literature and its language and its taxation and all
the other evidences of its power throughout western
Europe, was a thing of the past. Just when it died we
need not, dogmatically, say. No single date can cover
so stupendous an event.
The kingdoms of the conquerors. With the pass- —
ing of the last of the emperors in Rome, western Europe
became a battle ground for the Germanic tribes, until
finally the Franks, under Clovis, asserted their superior
power. These were the days that men remember as
the Dark Ages, and they persisted until the great
warrior, Charles Martel, broke the Moorish invasion
at the battle of Tours, more than two hundred and
fifty years after the dethronement of the last emperor
in Rome. A few years after Charles Martel saved
Europe from the Moslems his grandson became king
of the Franks. He was that Charles the Great who
was to lead Europe from the disorder of her Dark
Ages into the feudal order of her mediaeval years.
—
Charlemagne. The first part of the reign of
Charlemagne was given to conquest. The Saxons
proved able to withstand for years, but finally sub-
mitted. Then, at the request of the Pope, the Lombard
kingdom in northern Italy was conquered. Later
Charles subdued the Slavs, who touched his Saxon
frontiers, the Bohemians, and even established his rule
over a part of northern Spain. So it was but natural
that, on Christmas Day in the year 800, as Charlemagne
was kneeling in prayer in Saint Peter's Church in
Rome, the Pope should have put upon his head a crown
and proclaimed him "Emperor of the Romans." Upon
the ruins of the earlier empire another had been founded
that was to last, with varying fortunes, until the days
of Napoleon.
But it was immense significance, as we shall see
of
later, that the Emperor should have been crowned as he
was.
Christianity and a Smashed World

And what of Christianity in all these confused cen-
turies?Among the Christians of the Roman Empire
a feeling of despair seemed at first to triumph. They
saw the settled order of things being swept away by
men who, although they had been touched by Christian
preaching, were still "barbarians." They had been
looking, from the first days of the church, for the time
when their rehgion should triumph in Rome, believing
that then Christ would return in person to reign. Now
they saw that dream of earthly glory fall in ruin.
Worse still, there were plenty who had not embraced
the new faith who were loudly declaring that it was
the decay of the belief in the ancient gods and the end-
ing of the worship of the Emperor that had been respon-
sible for the downfall of the state. Within and with-
out Christians felt themselves dismayed.
—
"The City of God." We find a remarkable evidence
of this condition in a book written at that time by
Augustine, called The City oj God. Augustine was a
Christian from North Africa, converted in Milan, and
a man and mental vigor that his influence
of such piety
placed him at the head of the Christian teachers of
his day and has persisted through the ages.
During the dark days when Rome was falling before
the barbarian hordes Augustine wrote this book to
prove, first, that Christianity was not responsible for
these sorrows, because the old gods had failed to give
Rome strength, and, second, that the ultimate Chris-
tian goal is a city (or state) made up of those who are
saved. As the only means of salvation was then con-
ceived to be membership in the catholic church, this
was equivalent to saying that the organized church
was the goal of history, and must ultimately rule the
world.
Christians withdraw from the world. The result —
of such teaching was to induce Christians to withdraw
more and more from the affairs of everyday Hfe. Long
before this, in the eastern empire, men had formed
the habit of going off into deserts as hermits or gather-
ing in monastic colonies, where days were spent in
meditation and prayer, apart from the confusion and
cares of life. The influence of Augustine combined
with the despair of the age to spread this same move-
ment in the West. Here, to be sure, there was a healthier
tone in monastic life than in the East. The inhabitants
of the western monasteries, known as monks, worked
as well as prayed. There was very little of the foolish
and even harmful asceticism such as was shown in the
East when Simeon the Stylite climbed his column and

perched there as an act of worship for thirty years.
—
The contribution of the monasteries. It is easy to
criticize the monasteries. In this day we do not greatly
appreciate a type of religion that is constantly pointed
toward the salvation of one's own soul while ignoring
the needs of others. At the same time it is clear that
but for the teaching, studying, and copying of manu-
scripts that went on in these monasteries during the
dark and upset years of which we have been speaking,
the last bit of learning would have died out in Europe.
Learning fell to a low enough ebb, as it was. Even
the best of the monks had to acknowledge that he
could not write good Latin, and outside the clergy
there was almost complete illiteracy. Charlemagne
stood out above his contemporaries because, after
infinite effort, he learned to sign his name. He never
reached the point where he could read or write. The
only reason why all the learning of the past, the philos-
ophy of Greece, the poetry and prose of Rome, together
with the Christian scriptures, was not utterly lost in
those days was because, in monasteries left at peace
from the general fighting, gentle monkish souls pre-
served these treasures, even when they could not fully
comprehend them.

1. Compare the battle line in the World War with the
frontier defended by the later western Roman Empire.
2. Whatsuggestion of the unity of all history, and so
of all men, is there in the presence of the Huns in the
break-up of the Roman Empire?
3. Would the world have been better off if the bar-
barian invasion had been repulsed? If so, why? If
not, why not?
4. What passed out of the life of Europe when the
Roman Empire fell?
5. Give a sketch of the life of Charlemagne, Upon
what principles did he proceed to found his empire?
6. Was monasticism a proper form of Christian life
diuing the age in which it came into being? Is it still?
CHAPTER IV
THE WINNING OF NORTHERN EUROPE

We have seen the despair that came upon men in
the Roman Empire as that civilization fell before the
assaults of the barbarians, and Europe passed into
what have been called the Dark Ages. Instead of
the impulse that sent the eariy Christians everywhere
preaching we have seen men who would be religious
withdraw into monasteries and the cells of hermits.
But was there no missionary activity during these
centuries? Indeed there was. For while the Roman
Empire was passing, and the church about the
Mediterranean was suffering, elsewhere Christianity was
finding new sources of power as it tasted the fresh
energies of the young peoples who were rising to the
control of western Europe.
In its effectupon later world history this was one
of the most important periods of missionary advance,
for it saw Christianity spread through northern Europe.
Many of us willstudy in this chapter the story of the
coming of the message of Jesus to our own ancestors.
The Gospel and the Conquerors of Rome

As was told in a previous chapter (see Chapter II)
the Goths and Vandals who swept away what was
left of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century
were not utter pagans. They had been reached by
the Arian form of Christianity preached by the great
missionary, Ulfilas, and when they poured down into
33
Italy they were able to get along on comparatively
peaceful terms with the churches they found there.
Moreover, Ulfilas had given them the foundations of
a culture, when he reduced their language to writing,
inventing a Gothic alphabet and translating most of
the Bible into this tongue. (It is interesting to note
that the moment a Christian began to
missionary
work beyond the hmits of the Latin and Greek in
the midst of which Christianity had grown, he turned
to that work of translation which has in later centuries
placed Christian missionaries in the vanguard of cul-
tural transformations the world around. To-day
missionaries are still inventing languages for the same
cause that inspired Ulfilas, and so bringing the birth
of a literature to young peoples.)
The gospel and the Franks. Christianity ap- —
proached the Franks, who were finally to rule western
Europe, through a man of far different spirit than
the gentle Ulfilas. Martin of Tours was a fighter,
and marched at the head of an army of militant monks
who demolished pagan temples and felled sacred groves,
and would by violence have swept the Franks into the
kingdom.
The method did not prove immediately successful,
but, after a century of effort, when King
Clovis found
himself hard-pressed in he called upon the
battle,
Christian God, won, and returned home to be baptized.
When he underwent the rite he took with him three
thousand of his soldiers, and from that time on fought
as an orthodox, or Catholic, Christian, until he had
wiped out the last vestige of the heterodox, or Arian,
belief in western Europe.
Conversions —
en masse. With this baptism of
Clovis and his soldiers we see the beginning of a prac-
THE WINNING OF NORTHERN EUROPE 35
tice that was to bring great spiritual loss to Christianity,

namely, the baptism, often for material motives, of large
numbers who had slight knowledge of the significance
of the rite or the sort of community
into which they
were supposed to be entering.
Here, for example, is one such instance, as recorded
by a writer of that period: "There is a barbarous
nation which have their abode beyond the river Rhine;
they are called the Burgundians. These people lead
a quiet life; they are for the most part woodcutters.
The nation of the Hunni, by making continual inroads
upon these people, frequently destroyed many of them.
The Burgundians, therefore, reduced to great straits,
flew for refuge to no man, but resolved to intrust them-
selves to some god to protect them and having seriously
;
considered with themselves that the God of the Romans

did vigorously assist and defend those that feared him,
they all came over to the faith of Christ. Repairing,
accordingly, to one of the cities of Gaul, they made
request to the bishop that they might receive Chris-
tian baptism. The bishop ordered them to fast seven
days, in which interval he instructed them in the grounds
of the faith, and on the eighth day baptized and so
dismissed them. Being encouraged thereby, they
marched out against the Hunni, and were not deceived
in their expectation; for the king of the Hunni having
burst himself in the night by overeating, the Burgundians
fell upon his people, destitute of a commander, and,
few though they were, engaged and conquered very

many. For the Burgundians, being in number only
three thousand, destroyed about ten thousand of the
Hunni. And from that time the nation of the Bur-
gundians became zealous professors of Christianity."^
* Socrates the Scholar, quoted by Hodgkins, Via Christ*, The Macmillan Co., p. 69.
Aboutall that is needed to make such a narrative com-
would be the statement that those of the Hunni

plete
who were lucky enough to escape likewise promptly
sought baptism.
It takes little imagination for us to realize what
sort of must have
Christians converts of that type
made, and we need to bear in mind, in all our study
of this period, whether conversion was or was not of
this sort. Where it was we cannot expect much in the
way of ethical transformation.
Christianity in Ireland, Scotland, and England

After the conversion of the Franks the next great
advance of Christianity came when, in the fifth cen-
tury, a Scottish lad who had been carried into cap-
tivity in Ireland, after escaping, returned to that island
with this gospel.
Patrick, who won —
Ireland. No more romantic
career is to be found in Christian history than that
of this apostle to the Irish, Saint Patrick. He had
almost reached middle age, having undergone a second
captivity and having spent years studying the Chris-
tian institutions of Gaul, before he was able to respond
to the appeal of the voices from the Irish coast that
kept sounding in his ears, "We beseech thee, child of
God, come and again walk among us." He faced the
fierce opposition of the Druids, chanting a hymn that
deserves to rank among the finest Christian poetry:
"May
Christ, I pray,
Protect me to-day
Against poison and fire,
Against drowning and wounding;
That so, in his grace abounding,
I may earn the preacher's hire.
! ! ! ! !
"Christ, as a light,
Illutnine and guide me
Christ, as a shield, o'ershadowand cover me
Christ be under me Christ be over me
!
Christ be beside me
On left hand and right!
Christ be before me, behind me, about me!
Christ be this day within and without me
"Christ, the lowly and meek,

Christ, the All-Powerful, be
In the heart of each to whom I speak,
In the mouth of each who speaks to me
In all who draw near me,
Or see me or hear me."
It is no wonder that a man with a spirit of that kind

soon won Ireland. Then, with insight into what was
demanded if a permanent and far-reaching change
was to come in the lives of his converts, Saint Patrick
opened schools everywhere, and had boys and girls
taught the alphabet he invented. It is notable that,
even at that date, his schools were coeducational, and
that he gave women a large part in the work of evan-
gelizing the country. The most renowned of these
women who labored by the side of Saint Patrick was
Saint Bridget.
—
The gospel in Scotland. Saint Patrick was one of
those men who have had an influence that has extended
visibly far beyond their own personal reach. For not
only did he transform Ireland, giving it a type of piety
and a standard of culture better than that of any other
part of the Europe of his day, but he inspired a whole
line of Christian heroes, who ultimately took the gospel
through all the rest of northern Europe.
Scotland, as the nearest, was the first land to receive
one of these ambassadors. Columba was his name,
and during the thirty-four years that he labored after
his little wicker-woven skiff had brought him to the
islet of lona, he saw the fruit of his efforts increase
and increase until, by the time he died, about the

opening of the seventh century, Scotland might be
said to be Christian.
At the same time Columba worked in Scotland
another missionary, Columban, also inspired by Saint
Patrick, began to work in Gaul. Here his task was
to make real Christians of those who had been bap-
tized at a king's command. Because he chose as his
motto the phrase, "Be bold in the cause of truth and
impregnable against falsehood," the king drove him
into exile. But when, in what is now Switzerland, he
found a chance to work with avowed pagans, he achieved
great success.
Both Columba and Columban established what we
would now call industrial schools in connection with
their missions. It is the glory of this mighty missionary
movement that flowed out of Ireland that it based its
work everywhere on education.

The gospel for the Angles. —The story of the begin-
ning of permanent Christian work in England is almost
too well known to need repetition. During the years
while the Romans ruled Britain a flourishing church
had sprung up, only to be obliterated by the gods of
the tribes that blotted out the authority of the empire.
One day century the Abbot Gregory saw
in the sixth
exposed for sale in Rome some
boys whose beauty
moved him to inquire their race. Told that they were
Angles he replied, "Not 'Angles,' but 'angels,' " and
would have started as a missionary to the distant
island had he not been restrained by the Pope. Soon
Gregorj' was Pope himself, and soon he had sent

Augustine (not the Augustine abeady mentioned) as his
proxy in the quest.
Augustine first won the king of the Httle reahn of
Kent, whose wife had become a Christian in Gaul.
Later the kingdom of Northumbria, through its king,
was won over. But it was not until after centuries of
fighting, and after missionary work along the Baltic
had brought about the conversion of Denmark, that,
in the reign of King Canute, in 1030, Christianity fin-
ished its conquest of England.
When Augustine came to England he found mission-
aries at work there sent by Columba from Scotland.
The two groups did not get along together very well.
The missionaries who owed their inspiration to Columba
and Saint Patrick had little contact with the church
in Rome, and Augustine was under direct orders from
the Pope. The trouble increased until, in the middle
of the seventh century, a conference decided that the
Roman Church was to have the preference.
The Gospel in Germany and Scandinavia

It was one of the habits of Charlemagne, after he
had conquered a people, to give it the choice of Chris-
tian baptism or slaughter. What must have seemed
very gratifying increases in the so-called Christian
population took place in this manner, particularly in
Germany. But it required immense labors, leading
even to martyrdoms, by many missionaries to trans-
form these people into anything remotely resembling
true Christians.
Boniface. — Of these apostles to the Germans an
English monk, Boniface, was the greatest. He was
killed when, as an old man of seventy-five, he was on
his way to preach to the heathen ancestors of the
Dutch.
Hah' a century after Boniface, and Charlemagne
was dead. For a time it seemed as though his empire
could not weather the storm, which beat in greatest
fury from the north, from whence, led by the Danes,
the Norsemen swept south to harry Gaul and the
lands of the Mediterranean.
—
Ansgar. A quick shift in the internal politics of
Denmark and there came a chance to send a Christian
missionary there. A volunteer was found in Ansgar,
the quaUty of whose consecration was shown when a
friend asked him if he meant to persist in so danger-
ous an enterprise. "When I was asked whether I
would go for God's name among the heathen to pub-
lish the gospel," he answered, "I could not dechne
such a call. Yes, with all my power I wish to go
hence, and no man can make me waver in this resolu-
tion."
Ansgar was the first medical missionary, as well as
the great apostle to Denmark. Later he took the
gospel to Sweden, and from there it was carried to
Norway and even Iceland. We are not, however, to
think of this as any easy conquest. A Swedish king
was persecuted for his Christianity as late as the eleventh
century. And the struggle to convert East Prussia
took even longer. As one writer says, "The story of
Christianizing Germany and Scandinavia is a thousand
years long."

1. Why has Christianity always been eager to pre-
serve culture?
2. What conception of baptism lay behind the methods
that Clovis, Charlemagne, and others took to add to

the Christian community?
3. Give an account of the careers of Patrick, of Au-
gustine, of Boniface, of Ansgar.
4. What was the condition of your ancestors before
they were reached by Christianity? How long ago was
this?
5. Compare the progress of Christianity in India with
that in Germany.
6. What methods used by the missionaries mentioned
in this chapter are used by modern missionaries? What
is their value?
CHAPTER V
THE POPES COME TO POWER
As our history has proceeded we have seen that
one great institution with which we are dealing is the
papacy. It takes a leading part alike in the affairs of
congregations and kings. A Pope anoints Charlemagne,
and a Pope sends Augustine to the conversion of England.
The papacy remains to-day one of the important
powers of the world, and although much of its past
glory has departed, there are still many states that
think it necessary to maintain formal diplomatic rela-
tions with the head of the Church of Rome. One
cannot pretend to know the course of Christian his-
tory who has not studied the record of the papacy.
So we naturally ask. Where did this institution come
from?
The Answer of the Roman Church
It is always best to seek an answer to a question
first from those most directly concerned. If we con-

sult those who to-day acknowledge the authority of
the Pope, we find that they have a clear conception
of the cause that has placed the occupant of the bishopric
of Rome in a place of such conspicuous power. Their
answer places great importance upon a statement
attributed to Jesus.
A text that has made history. — In the Gospel
according to Saint Matthew (i6. i8, 19) are these
words: "I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church; and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will
42
THE POPES COME TO POWER 43
give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:

and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound
in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth
shallbe loosed in heaven."
One historian has said that this passage "has afifected
history more profoundly than the edicts of the most
powerful monarch."^ For it has been interpreted to
mean that the leadership of the organized church was to
be placed in the hands of Saint Peter, with power to
include or exclude whom he would from the benefits
of that body. And the Popes of Rome have been
regarded as the legitimate successors of Saint Peter,
holding by that succession the powers thus claimed
to have been placed in his keeping.
Why are the Popes so regarded? Because from very
early times there was a tradition within the church that
Saint Peter came to Rome to act as leader of the church
and that he suffered martyrdom
there, in that city.
And while there is no certain proof of this fact (as
there is, for example, of the presence of Saint Paul

in Rome) the tradition is so old, and has been so little
questioned, that it is generally believed. The Church
of Rome, then, stood for centuries in the thought of
orthodox Christians as preeminently the church of
Saint Peter, and the bishops of Rome
as his successors.
And the power that came to these bishops has been
held to be promised by Christ himself in the passage
we have quoted.
The Answer of History

When the historian approaches this question he is
not apt to stop with the quotation of Scripture. He
looks for the conditions that made men ready finally
» J. H. Robinson, Medieval and Modern Times, Ginn & Company, publishers, p. 46.
to agree to this interpretation of the passage as being
correct. For he soon as he starts investigating,
finds, as
that good members always agree
of the church did not
that such supreme power was to be handed down from
one bishop of Rome to his successors. "Why," he
asks, "did they finally accept that interpretation?"
Bishops and metropolitans.—We have already (see
Chapter I) seen how the elementary organization of
the Christian churches in the first years of their existence
developed into more rigid forms, with clergy sharply
divided from laity, and then the chief pastors of im-
portant cities set aside as bishops, and finally the
bishops of the most important cities known as arch-
bishops or metropolitans. We have seen how Con-
upon Christianity to cement his extended
stantine relied
empire together, and so we can understand what in-
creasing power came to these bishops, and particularly
to the archbishops, as they were accorded the support
of the great emperor.
To begin with, this power was confined to church
affairs.We have seen how the bishops were gathered
to passjudgment on what was true Christian teaching
and what false. Similar questions were likewise coming
up constantly within the local congregations, and the
word of the bishop was generally regarded as sufficient
to settle them.
But gradually these bishops began to exercise author-
ity on secular matters. The law came to recognize
their claim to special courts in matters that concerned
them, and when the church began to pile up property
under imperial favor there were many such matters.
So that, by the beginning of the fifth century, these
heads of important churches had accumulated great
powers, both churchly and secular.
The bishop of Rome. — In the beginning, these im-

portant, or metropoHtan, churches were the ones located
at Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. The Council of
Nicea (see Chapter II) formally acknowledged the
leadership of these great cities of the empire.
But same time a new power was rising in the
at the
was building, and by the middle
capital that Constantine
of the fifth century Constantinople was not only re-
garded as a metropolitan church but was competing
with Rome for the leadership of all. To this day Con-
stantinople has never admitted that Rome has won
that contest. And at the same time the force of his-
tory was great enough to include Jerusalem in the
group of leaders. Sometimes the bishops of these five
churches were known as metropolitans, and sometimes
as patriarchs. Those titles still persist in the Catholic
churches that do not recognize the claims of Rome.
The struggle for leadership among these five churches,
as we have said, resolved itself into a contest between
the bishop of Constantinople and the bishop of Rome.
On the roll of bishops of both cities we find some great
names. To only a slight extent was the personality
of the bishop to incline the outcome one way or the
other. Why, then, did Rome
finally win out?
—
The influence of the emperor. One reason is to
be found in the part played by the emperors. There
was no imperial authority in Italy after the middle
of the fifth century, as we have seen. But an emperor
remained upon the throne in Constantinople almost
until the time when Columbus was to sail for the New
World. And these emperors, from the time of Con-
stantine down, largely dominated the local patriarchs.
On the surface it might seem that a patriarch with
an emperor at his back would have an immense advan-
tage in asserting his power. But the trouble was that
the emperor was apt to be on the back of the patriarch
rather than at his back. The church instinctively felt
the need of some independence from temporal commands,
and that the bishop of Rome, away off in Italy, had,
while the patriarch of Constantinople, under the imperial
eye, frequently seemed but a puppet of the throne.
So the self-respect of the church inclined it to look to
Rome for leadership.
The influence of doctrine. — These years were filled
with controversies as to theological The

questions.
patriarchs of the East were found now on one side and
again on another in these disputes. The side tempo-
rarily in control would banish and persecute the other
side, and constant confusion was the result. For exam-
ple, in Alexandria the great Athanasius had to undergo
five exiles, and in Constantinople the great Chrysostom
was banished twice and finally died while on the way
to a farther place of exile.
There was little of this in Rome. The Roman bishops
had a good supply of common sense; they had a clear
body of Christian teaching that had come down from
the earhest days of the church; in some way or other
they generally managed to line up on the side of a dis-
pute that was to win the verdict of time. Thus it came
to pass that a large part of the church, wearied and
confused by these disputations, caught the habit of
thinking: "What does the bishop of Rome say? He
is generally right." And the doctrine of the Church
of Rome became famous for its correctness.
—
The influence of disorder. The bishop of Rome
was, as we have said, a long way from Constantinople.
As the empire gradually fell to pieces, he became almost
the only leader in the city who was always at his post.
The citizens came to look to him for leadership in

matters of all sorts, many of them purely secular.
When the Huns swept down to the gates of the city
(see Chapter IH) it was the bishop who went out to
meet them and persuaded them not to sack it. Such
a triumph, when all other means of defense had failed,
would add tremendously to the prestige of the position.
The bishop came to be the custodian of the election
of city officers, and to have authority to say how the
public money should be spent. Great tracts of land
in other parts of Italy were deeded to his church, and
he exercised the powers of a temporal sovereign over
these. Finally he came to negotiate with the nations
beyond Italy and give orders to generals just like any
other monarch. In fact, in that time of constant change,
this continuing rule soon became the most powerful
in western Europe.
—
The influence of tradition. Moreover, the bishop
of Rome had the advantage of being the bishop of
Rome. There is a glamour still about that city, the
Eternal City. For so many centuries before Constanti-
nople even was, it had ruled the world. The magic
of its name was strong upon men. Add to this the
fact that this church alone in the West traced its his-
tory back to two apostles, and you have two mighty
streams of tradition, one secular and the other churchly,
both working to exalt the bishop of Rome.
The Supremacy of the Pope Affirmed

By the middle of the fifth century the emperor at
that time ruUng in the western empire had been per-
suaded to publish a decree declaring the power of the
bishop of Rome supreme over that of all other bishops.
At the end of that century the bishop of Rome declared
his power supreme over that of any king, for, said he,
"Two powers govern the world, the priestly and the
kingly. The first is assuredly the superior, for the
priest is responsible to God for the conduct of the em-
perors themselves."
From that time on the power of the bishop of Rome
increased in the West almost without interruption. An
interesting sidelight is thrown on the period when we
learn that missionaries like Boniface (see Chapter IV)
were quick to publish to the Germans the superior
power of the bishop in far-off Rome as a means of free-
ing themselves from interference at the hands of nearer
bishops. And, finally, the day came when the kings
realized that the support of these Roman bishops was
an invaluable asset in their struggles for power.
—
Gregory the Great. The bishop of Rome who
finally won for his office the leadership of all western
Europe, both secular and ecclesiastical, was that Gregory
whom we have seen sending Augustine to the con-
version of the Angles. He it was who declared that
the title of Pope (equivalent to "father" in Latin) which
had been applied to many bishops in the past, should
be regarded as the exclusive property and title of the
bishop of Rome, and used as a mark of his headship
of all the church on earth. "Without making himself
offensive, he practically succeeded in acquiring almost
universal dominion."
The Pope crowns the Emperor. After Gregory's —
death, at the beginning of the seventh century the
papacy continued to develop as an institution with great
power. Finally, when Charlemagne had fought his
way to supremacy in Germany, France, northern Spain,
and most of Italy, the Pope then in Rome felt himself
ready to disregard the fiction that had been fostered
Roman emperor in 476,

since the deposing of the last
that western Europe was being ruled by the Emperor
in Constantinople, and crowned the German warrior,
as previously stated, as "Emperor of the Romans."
It was a far cry from the day when the emperor crucified
the first bishop of Rome to that
Christmas day, 800,
when the bishop of Rome made
a new emperor in a
church named for the apostoHc martyr!
The result of the rise of the papacy. And what —
happened within the church as the bishop of Rome
thus came to power? We have spoken as if, in the
struggle with Constantinople, the victory lay with
Rome. But this is because we are speaking from the
standpoint of the West. If we hved in the East, we
would repudiate such a conclusion.

The church in the East refused to recognize these
claims of the Pope. The patriarchs of Constantinople,
Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch went on claiming to
be equal in authority with any other Christian leaders
on earth. Gradually the split between East and West,
emphasized by the political conditions of those times,
broadened. was a complete break, and
Finally there
the "catholic" church went on to its destiny in two
branches, generally known as Roman and Greek, that

persist to this day.

1. To what
extent do you believe that Jesus expected
his followers to build such a highly organized church as
we see in this chapter?
2. What is your interpretation of Matthew 16. 18, 19?
3. Summarize the reasons that led to the supremacy

of the papacy.
4. Can you think of any reasons, beyond those men-
tioned in this chapter, that may have helped Rome to
assert its power, or may have hindered Constantinople?
5. Why did the churches in Antioch, Alexandria, and
Jerusalem not exercise as large an influence as those in
Rome and Constantinople?
6. Was it a good thing, or a bad thing, for the progress
of Christianity that the Pope came to hold such power?
CHAPTER VI
THE LATER CHURCH IN THE EAST

The churches that were under the dominance of the
metropoUtan cities of the East (Constantinople, Antioch,
Alexandria, and Jerusalem) never acknowledged the
supremacy that was claimed for Rome. As a conse-
quence they developed a life that has been distinct
from that of all the rest of Christendom.
In this chapter we are attempting to sketch the
history of the Greek Catholic Church, and the churches
that have been kindred to it. It is, of course, impossible
to give more than the barest outline. We are constrained
to not because the later history of the
this course,
Eastern church is not important, but because it is not
particularly important to us. We are of the West, and
so the story of the spread of Christianity in and through
and by the West is bound to interest us in greater meas-
ure. But we must remember that there is a wonderful
Christian history in the lands that trace their religious
descent from Constantinople.
The Mental Life of the Greek Church

The Greek always showed aptitude for adventure in
realms of the mind. The Roman was practical; he
built an empire and bound it together with roads.
The Greek was a dreamer; he built an Acropolis and
thronged to the schools of the philosophers. So when
the Roman became a Christian he was ready to give
most time to the work of building an organiza-
of his
tion that would make his religion, through its leaders,
51
a ruler of affairs; when the Greek became a Christian
he gave most of his time to disputes on matters of
doctrine and custom, and even art.
—
Controversies in the East. The story of the church
in eastern Europe from the time of Constantine on is
one of almost unending dispute. Church councils were
frequently called to put an end, by authoritative de-
but they won only indifferent
cisions, to these disputes,
success. Even if one question was settled, it would
not be long before the subtle mind of the Greek would
provoke another question that would stir the whole
church up again. Various emperors tried to stop these
disputations, but, on the whole, these efforts by the
throne only increased the trouble.
We have no time to outline these disputes. In the
realm of doctrine, they had to do mainly with the rela-
tion of Jesus to God and the Holy Spirit. The Western
church was, in later years, to dispute long concerning
the work done by Jesus; just what it was he did, and
how he did it. The Eastern church seemed more in-
clined to dispute as to who Jesus was. The Western
church was ready to worship Jesus when they saw
what he had done; the Eastern church declared it abso-
lutely necessary to know all about his person in order
to find the true ground for worship.
Then there were disputes as to church adminis-
tration. There was the great dispute as to what metro-
politan was to hold precedence. And there were minor
disputes, such as whether the clergy were to be allowed
to marry or not. In the Greek church that was answered
in the affirmative, with the understanding that priests
should marry before and not after ordination, and
with the highest places generally reserved for celibate
clergy.
THE LATER CHURCH IN THE EAST 53
Curiously, one of the fiercest controversies had to

do with the use of pictures and images in worship.
In the beginning the fear of idolatry, strong upon those
who had been so close to the Orient, lined the Eastern
church up in strong opposition. The Council of Con-
stantinople, meeting in 754, even went so far as to
condemn the "godless art of painting." But finally
the supporters of the images won, and the Greek church
is to-day marked by its worship of these and of sacred
pictures (ikons).
The Final Break with Rome

While the clergy throughout the Eastern empire
were engaging in these disputes, both theological and
otherwise, designed to weaken the bonds between
them and the practical-minded west, the patriarch of
Constantinople was likewise showing that he had no
intention of submitting to the pretensions of the Pope
of Rome. The struggle between the two lasted for
fivehundred years.
Constantinople and Rome excommunicate each
—
other. At the time of Gregory the Great (see Chapter
V) the patriarch claimed the title of "Universal Arch-
bishop," much to the indignation of that great Pope.
Less than two hundred years later another patriarch,
Photius, claimed to be equal with the Pope, and was
solemnly excommunicated for his presumption.
The ill-feeling grew
another two hundred years,
for
until finally, just the Normans were setting
before
out for the conquest of England, the patriarch closed
all the churches in the East that used the Latin rite.
The Pope replied with another excommunication, and

the year in which this was pubhshed in Constantinople,
1054, is usually spoken of as the year in which East
and West finally divided.
—
The East after the division. Meantime the Eastern
empire was facing a new enemy. The Mohammedan
invasion (see Chapter VII) was pressing close to the
walls of Constantinople. By 1080 the Turks were in
Nicea,
Before that the frightened Eastern Emperor had
appealed to the Pope, now the strongest figure in the
West, for help. The Pope saw here an opportunity to
bring the church in the East under his control, and the
crusades (see Chapter VIII) were his attempt to win
command of the situation. The crusades relieved the
pressure on Constantinople for a time, and various
councils were held at which a reunion of the Eastern
and Western churches on the basis of acknowledgment
of the supremacy of the Pope was negotiated. But
nothing came of these efforts. When certain church
dignitaries signed the documents they were imme-
diately repudiated by the people they were supposed
to represent. In 1453 the Turks finally captured
Constantinople, and since then there has never been
a serious attempt to bring the two churches together.
Missionary Efforts of the Greek Church

With Constantinople in Turkish hands, and the
patriarch appointedby a Mohammedan court, it might
have been expected that the Greek Church would
disappear, as had the church in North Africa. Why
did it not? We discover that it lived largely because
in its past had sent out missionaries who had planted
it
the seeds of its life among other nations, where now

it was to find vigor in its hour of need.
—
Cyril and Methodius. The two great missionaries
of the Greek Church were brothers, who were members

of the church in Thessalonica that had been originally
founded by Saint Paul. They were well educated, and
when one day a call came asking for volunteers to go
and help an obscure king in the Crimea decide whether
Judaism, Mohammedanism, or Christianity should dis-
place idolatry, Cyril started. His success fired him
for further missionary efforts, and together with his
brother he set off to convert the savage Bulgarians.
The story of the conversion of the Bulgarians illus-
trates the manner in which, in all ages, the Christian
missionary has made all sorts of talents contribute to
the success of his mission. The king of the Bulgarians
proved impervious to the preaching of Cyril. There-
upon Methodius obtained consent to paint a picture
upon a wall of the palace, and evolved such a terrifying
conception of the terrors of the Last Judgment that,
when the king and his warriors saw it, they demanded
baptism.
Preaching that spread far. —With Bulgaria won the
brothers pressed on into what is to-day Hungary and
secured the conversion of the Moravians hving there.
It has interested some scholars to point out the sort
of "apostoUc succession" thus opened to modern Protes-
tant missions. For, as we wiU later see, these Moravians
were to give birth to the Protestant missions of Germany
in the eighteenth century, as well as to the stirring in
the heart of John Wesley that brought on the evan-
England, and so led to much of the
gelical revival in
missionary enthusiasm of the Protestant churches of
England and America. It is a strange coincidence
that a missionary named Methodius should have so
directly contributed to the rise, a thousand years later,
of a branch of the church known as the Methodists.

The most significant work done by these brothers,
as has been that of multitudes of other missionaries,
was that of reducing the Slavonian dialects of these
peoples whom they had evangeHzed to writing, and
turning the Scriptures into a language that common
men could understand. These versions are still in use
in much of the Greek Church, notably in Russia,
although they are to-day as unintelligible as were the
Greek and Hebrew versions they originally superseded.
—
The gospel in Russia. Ât about the time when
missionaries from Ireland, England, and France were
taking the gospel throughout Scandinavia, the last
great stretch of unevangelized territory in the East,
Russia, was opening This is the way
to Christianity.
in which one writer has told the story:
"In many an art gallery may be found the picture
of the baptism of the Princess Olga, the first prominent
disciple of Christ in Russia, who, in 955, journeyed to
Constantinople to learn more of the Christian faith.
Her inquiries led to her baptism while in the city. Yet
the flow of Christianity from this royal source was a
varying stream, choked by Olga's grandson, Vladimir,
who was a pagan of pagans, offering human sacrifices
in any great stress of experience. But Vladimir finally
became Christian, after the fashion of many another
sign-seeking chief of those days, vowing that if he
succeeded in taking the stronghold Kherson, in the
Crimea, and if he might have the sister of the Greek
emperor, the Christian Princess Ann, as his wife, he
would adopt Christianity as the state religion. Vladimir
was beset by missionaries from the Mohammedan,
Roman and Greek Churches, as well as by the ancient
Jewish Church, each presenting the claims of his religion,
before he finally committed himself and his people to
Christianity. The story of carrying the gospel to

Russia differs from that of other nations in that it is
not accompanied by persecution. The people followed
Vladimir in a simple faith, and the Bible had been pre-
pared for them a hundred years before by Cyril and
Methodius."^ By the end of the twelfth century all
Russia was nominally Christian.
During the ages when much of Russia was over-
run by the Mongols, the Greek Church lived on in
security. By the middle of the sixteenth century,
with the country again free and unified,Moscow was
Rome, which was
declared a patriarchate in place of
held to be heretical. When Peter the Great came to
the throne the church came under full control of the
Tsar, and so remained until the revolution of 191 7.
Since then the church has suffered much purifying
repression, and there are many hopes expressed that,
when the confusion of the present passes, the church
in Russia will emerge with a spiritual vitality and mes-
sage worthy of the persistent devotion of the common
people of that great land.
Other Churches That Grew in the East

The Nestorian missions. —In the middle of the fifth
century, about the time the Western empire was passing,

the Eastern church and empire cast out, for alleged
heresies which we to-day have difficulty in distinguish-
ing, the bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius, and his
followers. The banished men found a resting
finally
place in Persia, and there the Nestorian church grew
strong.
Intensely missionary in spirit, there are evidences
that missionaries of the Nestorian church won consid-
'L. M. Hodgkins, op. cii., p. 105.
erable success in lands as remote as India and China.
The church, with some offshoots, still remains, although
it has been greatly reduced in numbers by centuries
hved in lands controlled by Mohanunedan powers.
—
The Armenians, So large a place have Armenian
Christians filled in the eyes of the West during recent
years, that it is well to remind ourselves that this church,
also, originally separated from the Greek Church.
That separation took place, however, over fourteen
hundred years ago, and despite their sufferings at the
hands of Turks and Kurds, the Armenians have remained
a distinct national church.
—
Copts and Abyssinians. Two other churches that
have branched off from the Greek Church require men-
tion. The first is the Coptic, which still holds its place
in Egypt despite the fact that "it may perhaps be said
that here Christianity has suffered more continuous
persecution than in any other part of the world."^
From the same church in North Africa came the
church in Abyssinia. Strong efforts have been made to
win this church to allegiance to the Pope, but without
result. It represents to-day a very debased form of
Christianity, largely affected by the traditions connect-
ing the Abyssinian court with the ancient Hebrews.

1. Map
the territory of the Greek Church at the time
of the splitfrom Rome; at the present.
2. What arguments can be brought forward in favor
of the use of images and pictures in worship? in opposi-

tion to such use?
3. Why did the church in the East refuse to recognize
the supremacy of the Pope?
»A. W. Harrison, The Church of Twenty Centuries, p. 119.
4. Why do missionaries, as in the case of Cyril and

Methodius, regard the securing of a written language
for their converts as important? Does the principle
still hold?
5.What is the tradition connecting the Abyssinian
court with the ancient Hebrews?
6. What can you find out about the condition of the
church in Russia to-day? What is its prospect for the
future?
CHAPTER VII
CHRISTIANITY'S GREATEST RIVAL
In tracing the history of the church during its first

thousand years we have seen how its growth was retarded
by weaknesses within its ranks. But it must not be
forgotten that Christianity also faced acknowledged
enemies without. The greatest of these was a rehgion
that came out of Arabia about the time that the Pope
was sending missionaries to convert England, and that
remains to-day the most active opponent of the Chris-
tian faith, Mohammedanism.
The Prophet of Mecca

The Hebrews used to speak of themselves as God's
chosen people. Some basis for that claim may be seen
in the fact that the three great monotheistic religions
of mankind have all come out of that little strip of
country that was the home of the Semites. The last of
these to arise came from the same region in which the
Christian apostle, Saint Paul, hid himself while he
evolved his system of doctrine. The lonely wastes of
Arabia seem to have been a good place for the nurture
of spiritual teaching.
The camel driver who saw visions. Early in the —
seventh century there lived in the city of Mecca, an
unimportant town in the Arabian peninsula, a guide for
the desert caravans named Mohammed. He had reached
mid-life without attracting attention, when he entered
the employment of a widow considerably older than
himself, named Kadijah. Something about the camel
60
CHRISTIANITY'S GREATEST RIVAL 6i
driver attracted the wealthy widow, and they were

married.
Given the leisure that became a man of affairs,
Mohammed began to develop the quahties of religious
leadership with which he had been richly endowed.
He found himself living in the midst of a debased idol-
atry, with every city at war with its neighbors. In his
journeys he came into contact with Jews and Chris-
tians, and responded to the conception of God they
taught. Finally he became convinced that God was
speaking to him, through his angel Gabriel, just as he
had spoken to the Hebrew prophets.
—
The flight to Medina. Mohammed's first attempts
to win his fellow-townsmen to the sort of worship thus
revealed to him met with little success. The people
of Mecca first laughed at him, and when he persisted,
prepared to kill him. Life was cheap in that half-
civilized city, and the people were jealous of the pros-
perity of their Kaaha, a sort of temple for idols, con-
taining in particular a sacred black stone, to which
—
pilgrims— a source of easy profit came to worship
from many parts of Arabia. The teaching of Mohammed,
which was unflinchingly against idolatry, menaced this
income, and so aroused the wrath of most of Mecca.
A
tribute to the sincerity of Mohammed, however, is
to be seen in the fact that those who knew him best
believed in him most. His wife, his father-in-law, other
members of his household and close friends, accepted
his teaching as a true revelation. When it became
clear that his life was in danger in Mecca, they banded
together to make possible flight. In 622 Mohammed
and his close followers fled to the neighboring city of
Medina, and the year of this Hegira, or flight, became the
first from which all foUowers of the prophet reckoned time.
Mohammed triumphs. —Mohammed lived for ten
years after his flight to Medina. In that short period
he led the citizens of his adopted home to a military
conquest of Mecca, and when once established in that
city repelled all attacks. His military triumphs appealed
to the other Arab chiefs, and before his death the prophet
was exercising authority over all Arabia, and had sent
embassies proclaiming his power throughout the Eastern
world.
Probably the worst thing that happened to Moham-
med was this success, coupled with the death of Kadijah.
As long as this wife lived Mohammed held true to the
clear, ethicalmessage with which he first commanded
attention. But when Kadijah died, and the prospect
of wide acceptance was dangled before his eyes if he
would abate somewhat the moral severity of his teach-
ing, Mohammed compromised with what must have
been his truest convictions. So it came to pass that,
in the closing years of his life, he permitted the intro-
duction of those elements of superstition, excess, and
cruelty that have done so much to blight the work of
Mohammedanism.
To be sure, by lowering his standards Mohammed
secured the allegiance of many chieftains who would
never have been attracted by a religion of ethical mono-
theism. But ethical compromise is never a sure founda-
tionupon which to build spiritually, and the last years
of Mohammed show the melancholy picture of a true
prophet who had sold his revelation for a little earthly
authority.
The Religion Called Islam

At death Mohammed left a well-developed re-
his
hgion, to which he gave the name of Islam, which
CHRISTIANITY'S GREATEST RIVAL 63
means "submission." The central idea thus expressed

issubmission to the will of God. Since Islam has proved
to be Christianity's most vigorous rival, we need to know
its main characteristics.
The Koran. —The basis of Islam is the Koran, its
sacred book. This purports to be a collection of the
revelations given to Mohammed, and was given its
final form only a few years after his death. It con-
tains not only the theological ideas that underhe his
teaching, but detailed instructions as to how his follow-
ers were to live. Parts of it are of great distinction,
while other parts, when read to-day, seem meaningless
or terribly dull.
The heart of Mohammedanism, as Islam is frequently
called, lies in its insistence upon the fact that there
is only one God —in Arabic known as Allah—and that
Mohammed is There have been
his truest prophet.
other prophets, such as Abraham, Moses, Jonah, and
Jesus, but the greatest of all is Mohammed.
In addition, the Koran enjoins the faithful to "honor
his parents, aid the poor, protect the orphan, keep his
contracts, give full measure, and weigh with a just
balance."^ Prayer must be offered five times a day
— before sunrise, after noon, before and after sunset,
—
and after dark with the worshiper kneeling toward
Mecca. During the whole month of Ramadan nothing
may be eaten between sunrise and sunset. Wine is
forbidden, and although this injunction is frequently
flouted, the extent to which it has been obeyed has
helped to make the Moslems as mighty as they have
proved to be. If possible, every Mohammedan is to
make a pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Koran holds out hope of a voluptuous heaven
>J. H. Robinson, Op. cil., p. 66.
to the faithful,and threatens those who have not ac-
cepted Islam with a fearful hell, compounded mainly
of fire. The surest road to this heaven is offered those
who fall in battle while fighting under the standards
of the prophet.
Allah is conceived as all-powerful, and all-deter-
mining, so that the whole course of life is unchangeably-
fixed —death, sorrow, and all other experiences being
given men in a way that cannot be escaped.
For this reason Mohammedans are complete fatalists,
braving the dangers of battle with utter indifference,
since they believe that what Allah wills is to be their
portion.
The weaknesses of Mohammedanism. Great as —
has been power, Islam has been cursed by many
its
defects. For one thing, it is based to a great extent

upon a supposedly inerrant holy book, and the Moham-
medan holds that all truth for all ages was contained
in this book when it was finished twelve centuries ago.
This has made impossible a mental life in keeping with
the advances in knowledge of later generations.
For another thing, slavery has flourished under
Mohammedanism, and the Moslem slave-trader is still,
in Africa, the most determined opponent of the effort

to wipe out human bondage.
Again, the position of women Islam is distinctly
in
inferior. They become creatures harem, utterly
of the
subservient to their lords. In wealthy homes polygamy
and concubinage are frequent.
Finally, Mohammedanism has always been ready to
resort to any methods, however cruel, to impress others
into the worship of the prophet. Death, slavery or
conversion has been the alternative presented con-
quered peoples. And this barbarity remains.
—
CHRISTIANITY'S GREATEST RIVAL 65
The Spread of Mohammedanism

Mohammed died master of Arabia. He left a religion
with temporal powers almost as great as its religious
interests. His successors, or caliphs, rapidly extended
this power until it comprised one of the largest empires
the world has known.
Damascus and Bagdad become world capitals.
The first of the caliphs, Ali, the father-in-law of
Mohammed, rapidly extended the rule of Islam over
Syria, Egypt, and Persia. A hard fighter and a man
of exceedingly simple habits, Ali made of his followers
the most formidable fighting force in the seventh cen-
tury. Soonbecame necessary to transfer the capital
it
from Medina to Damascus, and later,

inaccessible
when northern Africa and Asia Minor had been con-
quered, the caliphate was again moved, this time to
Bagdad.
In this rapid expansion, which can be followed on the
map, Islam came into conflict with Christianity at
almost every point. Frequently this was Christianity
with a glorious history, such as in North Africa, where
had been the great schools that had produced such
teachers as Origen and Athanasius, and the churches
that had brought forth such leaders as Augustine.
But this Christianity had sunk into a sterile intel-
lectualdormancy, with almost no real spiritual vigor,
so that therewas no power with which seriously to dis-
pute the progress of Islam. Within a very short time
most of the Christian worship in these regions was
obliterated.
There a tendency to lament this overrunning of
is
Christian lands by the Moslems, but it must be ad-

mitted that the weaker fell before the stronger. For
there is no question but that Damascus, and to a greater
degree Bagdad, were the finest cities of their day, the
capitals of a culture surpassing that of any other part
of the world except China. When Islam finally pene-
trated into Europe it came with a civilization superior
to that which it found there.
—
The Moors invade Europe. For centuries the
Mohammedans tried unsuccessfully to enter Europe by
the East. Foiled by the desperate resistance of the
eastern Roman Empire, Islam sought another entrance
in the West, and here succeeded. The West Goths, who
had taken possession of Spain at the time of the break-up
of the western Roman Empire (see Chapter III), had
degenerated to the point where they could present no
effective resistance. Spain was soon in the hands of
the Moslem invaders from northern Africa whom
history knows as the Moors.
Across the Pyrenees beckoned the fair lands of France,
and soon the Moors were marching to fresh conquests
there. At first they seemed invincible, and all Europe
fated to Moslem rule. But in 732, near Tours, the
Prankish army, under Charles Martel, met the invading
host in what has been called one of the decisive battles
of the world. The Franks were at least able to stop
the advance, and the Moors withdrew sullenly to Spain.
Here they remained in undisputed possession until
Charlemagne began the long warfare against them
that was to continue with varying fortune until, just
before the ships of Columbus were ready to haul up
their anchors on that most memorable of all voyages,
the last Moorish stronghold fell into the hands of the
Christian monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella.
—
The greatest Moslem nation. It remained, how-
ever, for another Mohammedan nation, the Turks, to
CHRISTIANITY'S GREATEST RIVAL (yj
establish the most lasting empire under the standard

of the prophet. By the eleventh century the Seljuk
Turks, who had come from the steppes of western
Asia, had obtained control of most of the Moslem
world. They had none of the tolerance that marked
the Arabs, and their persecution of pilgrims to Christian
shrines in Palestine, together with their desperate
attacks on Constantinople, led directly to the crusades.
At the opening of the fourteenth century another
tribe of Turks, named the Ottomans, after their great-
est leader, secured the ascendency. These soon accom-
plished what their forerunners had and in
failed to do,
1453 shook all Europe by capturing Constantinople

and wiping out the last vestige of the eastern Roman
Empire.
The empire that the Ottoman Turks established has
endured. In fact, as late as 1683, Turkey was fighting
at the gates of Vienna for the rule of eastern Europe.
In later centuries the Turk has lost much of his
power. To-day, at the close of two Balkan wars and
the World War, he seems utterly impotent. But he
still manages to hold some empire in Asia and to retain
his capital at Constantinople. It is significant, however,

that to-day, for the first time since Mohammedanism
swept out of Arabia to world conquest, the majority
of the followers of the prophet, a multitude about
equal to those who acknowledge the authority of the
Pope, are under the temporal rule of non-Moslem
powers.

1. Tell the story of the life of Mohammed.
2. What are the strong features, and what the weak,
of Islam?
3. Where didMohammedanism come into conflict with
Christianity, and why did it prevail?
4. Do you agree that Tours was one of the decisive
battles of the world? Why?
5. What evidences of the superiority of Moslem to
Christian civilization at the time of the Moorish con-
quest of Spain can you find?
6. What is the present condition of Islam? To what
extent is it now a dangerous enemy of Christianity?
CHAPTER VIII
THE CHURCH GOES TO WAR

In all the history of the Christian Church there is
surely no more romantic period than the two hundred

years between the close of the eleventh and the thir-
teenth centuries when the crusades were in progress.
There is something in the picture of kings, knights,
monks, peasants, even children, pinning upon them-
selves the sign of the cross and marching out to fight
with the infidel for the possession of the Holy Land
that thrills us all.
It has been the fashion to speak of the crusades as
mistaken efforts that failed to accomplish their objects
and merely drained the strength of Europe. But, when
we look closer, we find that they made a real contribu-
tion to the growth of Christianity.
Feudal Europe
The crusades grew out of feudalism. With the main
features of that curious social organization that once
flourished all over western Europe we are familiar.
We know how the kings were forced to pay their nobles
for help in time of war by grants of land, exacting in re-
turn only an oath of allegiance. We know how the nobles
again subdivided their lands, exacting the same oaths
from their lesser lords. And so this passed down from
king to prince, from prince to duke, from duke to count,
from count to baron, until all society stood in this
—
pyramid pattern, with the serfs the common people
who tilled the lands — at the bottom supporting all.
69
Life was a rough affair for these feudal lords. They
built themselves great fortresses in which they might
resist attack, and then devoted most of their time to
warfare with each other. Their bonds of fealty to their
overlords were slight, and the kings were generally mere
figureheads. In Germany, for example, while there
always remained an emperor, the land was really ruled,
or terrorized, by almost five hundred independent nobles.
—
The truce of God. So universal became this prac-
tice of plundering one's neighbors that the church
began to feel that it must be checked if any civilization
was to survive. So the famous "truce of God" was
proclaimed, under which the church threatened its
most terrible penalties to such lords as did not confine
their fighting to Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of
each week, and did not leave churches, monasteries,
churchmen, pilgrims, merchants, and women alone all
the time.
The kings were inclined to support such measures
by the church, for they saw many of their lords becom-
ing too strong for the throne to control. But it is hard
to tell just how much effect the truce had, even with
royal approval. Fighting on any terms was too popular
a pastime to be abandoned, even for four days a week.
So it was that both church and monarchy, at the
close of the eleventh century, were eager to find some
outlet for the martial activities of the barons. This
outlet the crusades supplied.
The Cause of the Crusades

At least three causes combined to induce the Popes
to launch the crusades.
The Holy Land in infidel hands. —Most histories
place emphasis upon the thrill of horror that went
THE CHURCH GOES TO WAR 71
through Europe when it became known that the Seljuk

Turks, that warhke tribe from western Asia who had
succeeded the Arabs in the leadership of Islam, had
taken over the control of Syria and were mistreating
Christian pilgrims on the way to the shrines of Palestine.
Next to monastic retirement, pilgrimage was the most
popular form of religious hfe in the Middle Ages.
All sorts of virtues were thought to be obtained by those
who personally touched spots connected with the earthly
hfe of the Christ, or famous saints. During the first
centuries of Mohammedan rule in Asia Minor the

Arabs made no objection to Christian pilgrimages to
spots that were almost as sacred to them as to the
Christians. But the fierce Turks, who looked upon
Christians as intolerantly as the Christians looked
upon them when they called them "infidels," by cruel
torture soon put an end to the making of pilgrimages.
The Eastern empire under attack. Furthermore, —
the Turks were desperately seeking to capture Con-
stantinople. They had pushed their way up to the
walls of that city, and the emperor of what was left
of the eastern Roman Empire was able, with truth,
to warn western Europe that the city could not hold
out much longer, and that, once it fell, the Moham-
medan, who had been checked in the West three hun-
dred years before, would sweep through this breach in
the east to the peril of all Europe. To preserve its
own life, Europe must thrust back the menace before
Constantinople.
The chance to unite the church. Terribly fright- —
ened by the approach of the Turks, the emperor in
Constantinople made his appeal for help to the Pope
as the outstanding leader of the West. This was not
long after the Greek Catholic Church had finally sep-
arated from the Roman (see Chapter VI). The Pope
saw in this situation a chance to heal the split, with his
own authority as head of the church acknowledged in
the East as well as in the West. Accordingly, he prom-
ised to rally the West to the help of the East, at a price.
So it is that several times during the crusading centuries
we see representatives of thePopes and representatives
of the Eastern empire meeting, each time formally agree-
ing to —
pay that price acknowledgment of the supremacy
of the —
Pope and each time discovering that no Eastern
envoy can secure delivery promised recognition
of the
by the masses of members Greek Church. But
of the
always this possibility kept dangling before the eyes
of the Popes to move them to the proclamation of
further crusades.
Palestine Captured by the West

It was in 1095 that the first Pope, Urban II, made
the appeal that launched the first crusade. Addressing
the nobility of France, he told the tale of the Holy
Sepulcher in the hand of the Turk, and Islam pounding
at the eastern gate of Europe. To those who would
seek to plant the cross in place of the crescent over
Syria, Urban promised forgiveness of sins, freedom from
the payment of interest upon debts, the right ta mort-
gage their property against the wishes of their feudal
lords, and the protection of the church for their families
and lands. A faithful crusader, dying in battle, was to
have immediate entrance into heaven.
The appeal of the Pope caught the imagination of
that warlike and romantic age. With a shout, "God
wills it!" that was soon to echo over Europe, an
all
army was gathered in France and Germany that seem-

ingly never doubted its ability to cross seas or deserts,
and capture a Holy City two

as well as fortified areas,
thousand miles away. And, in truth, the first crusade
accomplished that very thing!
—
The kingdom of Jerusalem. The most picturesque
figure of that first crusade was the wild preacher, Peter
the Hermit, whose eloquence enhsted so large a part
of the host. But Peter proved a poor enough warrior,
and nothing but failure would have come to the expedi-
tion had not the knights, with their well-armed retainers,
taken the lead.
Palestine was slow. At the beginning
The advance on
there were dreadful outrages perpetrated upon the
Jews in certain parts of Europe. Then there was a
long wait while the Turks, at that time hopelessly at
war among themselves, were pushed back from before
Constantinople. Then the knights turned aside still
farther to carve out for themselves principalities in
Asia Minor.
At last, however, in 1099, the crusade reached Jeru-
salem, and captured it. The inhabitants were massacred
in a way that seems hideous when we remember that
this was a Christian expedition for the rescue of shrines
connected with the career of the author of the Sermon
on the Mount. A French knight was installed in Jeru-
salem as "Defender of the Holy Sepulcher," and a
whole kingdom was estabhshed, following Western
models, and owning religious allegiance to Rome. Addi-
tional crusaders came in shoals from Europe, drawn
by reports of the easy wealth that had been carried
back when first the cities of Asia Minor were captured.
The Disintegration of the Crusades

There was nothing in this sort of adventuring, with
its mixture of motives good and bad, of a permanent
nature. After the success of the first crusade, marred
as that was, there is little in the history of the crusades
that followed to claim our interest.
—
Templars and Hospitallers. One curious outgrowth
of the periodwas the orders of monkish knights formed
to fight in the crusades. The most famous of these
were the Knights of the Temple, and the Hospitallers,
or Knights of Saint John.
The former was formed originally to protect pilgrims
in the Holy Land; the latter to conduct a hospital first
established in Jerusalem by Charlemagne. Both be-
came great military bodies, the backbone of the war-
fare against the Turk.
In much the same way that support is given to mis-
sionaries to-day, both were given enormous grants of
land and wealth by people in Europe who were not
ready, in person, to go crusading. The Templars became
so powerful that they aroused the fear of both kings
and Popes, and were finally suppressed bloodily soon
after the last crusade. The Hospitallers, after being
Turks first from a
forced out of Palestine, defied the
base on the island of Rhodes, and later from Malta,
where they maintained themselves until the British
Empire took over their guardianship, after America
had won its independence.
—
Other crusades. In large measure, the success of the
first crusade was due to internal dissensions among the
Moslems. When they were able to put their full strength

in the field it was not long before the Christian prin-
cipalities in Asia Minor were wiped out. Saladin, the
greatest of the Mohammedan leaders of that period,
captured Jerusalem before the end of the twelfth century.
One crusade after another was launched to push back
this Moslem counter attack, but in vain. The motives
of the crusaders steadily depreciated. The first fine
enthusiasm was lacking. The crusades became mere

political forays, often not even directed against the
Holy Land. There was one terrible affair, participated
in only by children, who perished by thousands or were
sold into slavery. By the end of the thirteenth century
the desire to conquer the Moslem by the sword was
exhausted.
Raymond Lull. —But just at the time one sort of
crusade was being abandoned another was beginning.
In 1 291 Raymond Lull, who had been inspired to study
Arabic in order that he might preach to Mohammedans,
was expelled from Tunis after a year of missionary
work. He tried a second time with a similar result.
He then induced the Pope to order the teaching of
Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic in the leading
universities of Europe in order to equip other mission-
aries —
an order that was never carried out. Finally
he again entered Tunis and there, in 13 14, he suffered
martyrdom. Lull was a forerunner of the modern kind
of Christian crusade, which still labors, in the truest
sense, to overcome the crescent with the cross.
What the Crusades Accomplished

And what did these two centuries of warfare accom-
plish? Much more than some have been willing to
admit. Let us enumerate at least four results of the
crusades:
1. The Turks were pushed back and the pressure

on the eastern empire so lessened that it continued
to exist for four centuries.
2. The nobles who mortgaged themselves and their
retainers to make these expeditions were so impov-
erished, in many they could not con-
cases, that
tinue their repression of the non-mihtary classes
of Europe.
3. The horizons of thousands of men who had been
unable to read or write, were broadened by their
contact with the civilization of the East. The
world became a bigger place in which to live.
4. Most important of all, the church, in an age of
general disorder, showed its ability to rally all
Europe to a single idea, and that, in the eyes of

that age, a rehgious idea. Thousands of men,
among them the proudest princes, were ready to
enlist under the Pope to achieve a distant and
difl&cult objective. So it was that the church came
from this period immeasurably the strongest
institution in Europe.

I. Was the feudal system a good or a bad thing for its
age
2. Can you trace any influences of the feudal system
surviving to-day?
3. If you had lived at that time, what cause would
have most moved you to join the first crusade?
4. What can you discover about the character of the
men who made the crusades?
5. What do you consider the most important result
of the crusades, and why?
6. suggestions for the modern Christian crusade
What
of missions are to be found in the career of Raymond Lull?
CHAPTER IX
LIFE AND WORSHIP IN THE MEDIEVAL
CHURCH
If you House of Lords in England, you will
visit the
Church of England sitting with dukes
find bishops of the
and barons as peers of the realm. This is a modern
reminder of mediseval days, when the officials of the
church held a rank as high in the state as any others
of the nobility, because the church was as much a
feudal power as any duchy or principality.
But we must not conceive the mediaeval church only
in terms of Popes and bishops and high dignitaries.
We must remember that it rested upon the faith and
allegiance of millions of humble folk. And if we want
to know what the church in mediaeval times was really
like, we must try to see it through the eyes of these
commoners.
The Theory of the Medieval Church

By the time of the crusades the church had evolved
a theory as to its place in society that put it at the
very pinnacle. And, in that rough age, when there was
civil authority, we do not wonder that a great
little
Pope, such as Gregory VII, could propound a doctrine

that would to-day be instantly challenged.
Gregory VII. — Gregory sat upon the papal throne
for only twelve years (he died just before his successor
first crusade), but for years before
issued the call for the
he was the real power behind the Pope. He
his elevation
held the Pope to be the only universal bishop, who
77
might depose and reinstate other bishops, and transfer
them from place to place.
The Roman Church was declared never to have
erred, and to be incapable of erring. No council could
speak for the church without the Pope's consent. No
person could be a true Christian outside the Roman
Church, and no book could be authoritative that the
Pope had not approved.
Then Gregory went ahead to assert his supremacy
over all earthly rulers. He stated that he could depose
kings and absolve their subjects from their oaths of
allegiance. He could annul the decrees of all sovereigns
or courts, and any person in any country might appeal
from local jurisdiction to that of the Pope. The acts
of the Pope might not be judged by others.
—
The church a feudal power. It can be seen that
such powers, if exercised, would have made the church
supreme in every relation of life. And the attempt
was made by Gregory and his successors to exercise
these powers (see Chapter X). This attempt served
to weave the church more closely into that leudal struc-
ture we have already described.
All over western Europe there were monasteries and
bishoprics thatowned great stretches of land. Many
of thesehad been the gifts of kings and lords in an age
when currency was little used, and land the most common
form of bestowal. To obtain these gifts the bishops
and abbots frequently took the oath of fealty to their
givers. And often the clergy tried to insure protection
for their possessions by swearing fealty to some neigh-
boring powerful lord.
The all-inclusive church. — One other fact that dis-
tinguished the mediaeval church was its inclusiveness.
The theory was that all the states of Europe were

LIFE AND WORSHIP 79
Christian, and that, must

therefore, all their subjects
be Christians. As membership in the church was the
only way of showing such allegiance, everyone was
considered a member of the church, and taxed accord-
ingly. To deny that church membership was treason
to the state as much as to the church, which accounts
for the way which Jews were ill treated, and for the
in
terrible punishments visited upon condemned heretics.
Life in the Medieval Church

What sort of a life was it that went on inside this
vast body? We see abuses, to be sure, but we must
recognize that the church also rendered vast services.
Abuses in church leadership. —Every history of the
period tells us much were frequently
of the abuses that
to be found in the high places of the church. So inter-
mingled with the political order of the time had the
church become that it was inevitable that unworthy
men would aspire to the power inherent in its important
positions. Men of worldly nature, frequently openly
immoral, became bishops, cardinals, even Popes. Some-
times kings, attempting to control the course of the
church, appointed their courtiers to wealthy benefices.
Rumors as to irregularities within the monasteries and
convents were frequently heard. These evils actually
existed, as they might be expected to grow up in a
body that had no competition to cause it to be careful
of the sources of its own power.
Faithful service predominant. —
But while such con-
ditions existed, must not be forgotten that there were
it
scattered over Europe thousands of humble parish

priests and gentle scholarly souls within the monas-
teries rendering faithfully the service expected of them.
We do not read much about such men, just as to-day
8o THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
it is the outrageous act that is reported in the news-
paper to the neglect of the daily performance of duty.

But we know there were such, or inevitably the struc-
ture of the church would have come crashing down.
There were plenty of covetous lords who would have
worked to bring this to pass, but the devotion of the
masses of the people to their priests was so deep that
they dared not try it.
We get a ghmpse of this same spirit in the career of
Saint Francis of Assisi and the order of travehng brothers
he founded. It was the ideal of Saint Francis that
his Franciscans should embrace poverty, and go about
Europe entirely dependent upon the bounty of the
people, preaching as they went. The response to such
an ideal was instant, and the order grew to vast pro-
portions, losing, alas, its finest features as it grew.
The church's —
opportunity. Not only did the church,
as represented by many of the humbler priests, bring
its ministries of comfort, of inspiration, and of wor-
ship, but to thousands of poor people it offered the

only hope of advancement for their sons. In the sense
that its offices were open to men of all ranks, the church
was the only element of democracy in mediaeval Europe.
There were Popes whose fathers had been peasants.
Luther, who achieved distinction as an Augustinian
before he broke with the Roman Church, never ceased
to boast that his father and his grandfather before
him had been peasants. The church and the monastery
symbolized to the common folk of feudal times that
most precious of possessions — an opportunity for their
children to rise in the world.
Worship in the Medieval Church

So we find in mediaeval Europe a church that claimed
LIFE AND WORSHIP 8i
all men its members, that exacted taxes from all,

as
and that probably meant more to most common men
than king or court. What sort of worship did such a
church offer?
The growth of ritual.— We have seen (see Chap-
ter I) how simple was the worship in the Christian
churches within the Roman Empire a century or so
after Christ. But as time passed, as the church became
the ally of the state, as the influence of various other
faiths made itself felt, a far-reaching change took place.
When the clergy became sharply distinguished from the
laity, it was felt that they should have acts to perform
that no layman would ever attempt. So there grew up
an elaborate ritual, that only years of study could make
one competent to conduct. By the Middle Ages, the
proper performance of this ritual comprised the most
important, and frequently the only, element in worship.
This ritual was conducted in Latin, which is still
the official language of the Roman Catholic Church.
Accordingly, in feudal times was largely incompre-
it
hensible to the congregations, and often, if some de-

tractors were to be believed, to the priests themselves.
Sir Walter Scott, in Ivanhoe, depicts a jester success-
fully passing as a priest by the use of a single Latin
phrase. must be acknowledged that, in feudal Europe,
It
the actual words of the ritual or of the Vulgate version
of the Bible that was read in the churches had little
meaning to hosts of worshipers.
—
The sacraments. This ritual grew up largely in the
celebration of the seven sacraments that were held to
be essential to salvation. These were baptism, the
Lord's Supper, penance, confirmation, matrimony,
orders, and extreme unction. To these, particularly
to the first two, was given a mysterious, almost magical,
valuation, so thatit was believed that one who had
been baptized and who died at peace with the church,

not debarred from any of these sacraments, was sure
of eternal bliss.
So generally was this theory of the sacraments accepted
that when the Pope placed an interdict upon a state,
forbidding the sacraments to the people, terror ensued,
and frequently popular uprisings. Kings learned to
cower before this terrible weapon of the church. In
the main, it can be said that worship in feudal Europe
consisted in participation in the required sacra-
ments.
The —
building of the cathedrals. The place held by
the church in the life of mediaeval Europe is suggested
by the greatest survival of those times, the cathedrals.

Immense fortunes must have been contributed to the
making of these stupendous monuments, and centuries
were required to complete many of them. How were
the people encouraged to undertake such enterprises?
The normal income of the church, large as it was,
would never have sufficed to build the cathedrals.
But the church in those days fostered certain great
fears that induced men to give large sums in addition
to those they usually contributed. The greatest of these
fears was that of the end of the world. It was univer-
sally believed that this would occur in the year looo,
and men of all ranks contributed to secure their own
salvation. A
study of the history of the cathedrals
shows that most of them obtained their great impulse
at that time. And we shall see (see Chapter XIII)
that the greatest cathedral of Catholicism owed its
completion to the purchases of indulgences, because
of the fear of purgatory that had been inspired in men's
hearts.
THE CHURCH IN THE LIFE OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE
Just as the cathedrals towered over the towns, so the church overshadowed the think-
ing of those days.
.
LIFE AND WORSHIP 83
The Common Man and the Church

So the life of the common man in mediasval Europe
was, from birth, tied up with the church. When he was
a few days old he was baptized, and became, in theory,
from that time a good Christian, At the middle of
boyhood, after some slight teaching by the priest, he
was confirmed in the church, and partook of his first
communion. When he fell into sin he confessed his
wrong to the priest, and did what penance was required.
Perhaps the land upon which he lived belonged to
some monastery. Then most of his income went to sup-
port that place. Or if he lived on land of his own, or
was a tradesman, he gave a required tax yearly when
the priest demanded it of him.
When he married, the priest performed the ceremony.
When his son was born he determined that a better
lot should be his, and gave him early into the keeping
of the monastery for training as a priest. As long as
the priest did not deny him participation in the Lord's
Supper he felt himself spiritually satisfied. And when
the last hours of his life drew near, the priest, who had
been his friend so long, administered extreme unction,
and he died sure of heaven.
It was a naive, and in many ways a mechanical,
attitude toward religion. But it served for centuries
to satisfy the inner longings of millions.

1 Give a more detailed account of the career of Gregory
VII.
2. How did the church in feudal times differ from the
church of the present?

3. Give a description of the life of Saint Francis of
Assisi.
4. How does the Protestant theory of the sacraments
from that of the Roman CathoHc Church?
differ Just
what is a "sacrament"?
5. Describe the architecture of some of the great
cathedrals. Name several of the most famous.
6. Explain what is meant by "indulgence" as used in
this chapter. Does the Roman Catholic Church dis-
pense indulgences to-day?
CHAPTER X
CHURCH AND STATE
It was the Pope who ralKed western Europe to the
crusades. But it was the nobihty who provided the
soldiers for those great adventures. And it was the
kings who, at the end, led.
Vast readjustments followed those expeditions. Many
of the lords had been impoverished. While they had
spent themselves in foreign lands, the merchant classes
at home had seized the chance to increase in power.
At the same time the weakness of the nobles made it
possible for the kings to assert the authority of the
crown. And behind all ruled the power in Rome that
claimed to rule even the kings.
So that, by the end of the crusades, the stage was set
in Europe for that struggle that has continued down to
this day, the struggle for supremacy between church,
the aristocratic state, and the common people.
When the Church Ruled Europe

In the beginning seemed certain that the church
it
would win this struggle.From the day when a Pope

induced the Huns to turn from Rome without plunder-
ing the city, the influence of the papacy had been grow-
ing. Despite periods when weak men or unworthy men
had been upon the papal throne, the papacy had re-
mained throughout the centuries as the one fixed author-
ity to which men might look while the kingdoms of
mediaeval Europe were running their brief courses.
And we have seen how, under such a Pope as Gregory
VII, the theory of the church's authority was developed.
85
—
Unenviable position of kings. To anyone who
travels in Europe to-day and sees the abbeys that
still remain, or finds great cities that were once the
possession of bishops, and then remembers that for
eight centuries or more men have been busily wiping
out these evidences of churchly ownership, it is graph-
ically clear that, at the time about which we are speak-
ing, a very large part of the surface of Germany, France,
Italy, and England was owned by the church. So that
the kings had above them a papacy claiming the right
to rule them, and below them a large part of their
realms in the hands of men who rendered their first
allegiance to that same papacy. It is hardly to be won-
dered that strong kings grew restive under such condi-
tions, and determined to alter them.
The Power of the Kings Begins to Grow

At the beginning of the two centuries of crusading
there was scarcely a strong king in Europe. But before
the end of those two centuries, the kings had begun to
assert the leadership which they have continued to
hold in European affairs until almost the present.
—
The towns gather wealth. When a feudal lord
fell in with the fashion of that day and vowed to
make a crusade, his first requisite was for equipment

for his retainers. Relying upon the booty he meant
to bring back from the East to repay his debts, he
mortgaged himself to the merchants and mechanics of
the towns and sallied forth to the rescue of the Holy
Sepulcher.
But few came back wealthy. And
of the crusaders
when they found that, in their absence, the
did, they
towns had taken advantage of the rest from the con-
stant raiding that had gone before the crusades, to
CHURCH AND STATE 87
throw up walls and consolidate their own position. It

proved impossible for these barons to check the rising
wealth of the town merchants, who foreclosed their
mortgages in a most ungallant fashion.
Moreover, the towns threw in their lot with the
kings as against the nobles. The lords lived in isolated
castles; the kings built their palaces in the towns. The
wealth of the towns was at the disposal of the king,
who, in return, gave the protection of his army. Power
has a way of gravitating into the hands of those with
wealth, and it was not long before the king and the
town formed an alHance of greater power than the
isolated and almost bankrupt barons.
—
Frederick II. Of all the kings of this period,
Frederick II was the most interesting. For one thing,
he did his own thinking. Although he was under the
instruction of the papacy from boyhood, he exhibited
a notable tolerance toward all systems of thought,
whether orthodox or not. He seemed to be determined
to rule his empire (he was King of Sicily as well as Em-
peror of Germany) as he pleased, without interference
by the Pope. As a youth he had pledged himself to
make a crusade. When the Pope pressed him to start
he was too busy making his throne secure, and was
excommunicated for his tardiness. When Frederick
got ready to go, the Pope was not ready to have him,
and excommunicated him again for starting. None
the less, he went and actually won control of Jerusalem,
where he was recognized as King. To the end of his
life he continued to go his own way, almost always at
outs with the Pope.
Customs That Forced the Issue

So, in the career of Frederick II, we see epitomized
the struggle between the church, represented by the
Pope, and the state, represented by the King, that
filled the last years of mediaeval Europe. First the
kings, as we have seen, won the upper hand over their
nobles. Then they felt themselves strong enough to
challenge the claims of the papacy. In studying that
bitter struggle we find that there were one or two par-
ticular issues upon which it was fought out. What
were they?
Investiture. —
The church, in its ownership of lands,
had, as we know, become a part of the feudal system.
Bishops and abbots frequently maintained their men-
at-arms, and rode to war with all the zest of lay barons.
These benefices were, in many cases, very rich, and
naturally, they were greatly coveted.
But who was to fill these benefices? In the case of
a lay baron, the and lands descended from father
title
to son, and when the line became extinct the king

bestowed it upon whom he pleased, exacting a new
pledge of fealty, or gathered it back into his own posses-
sions. But when a bishop or an abbot died, unless he
was married and left children, his title, land, and power
would pass into other hands.
Who was to say whose hands these should be? The
Pope claimed the right to name all clerical leaders.
But that gave the real control of a large part of every
kingdom to a man in Rome, who was already feared
by the kings because of the powers he claimed. More-
over, the kings felt that these great church holdings
were but that they
only secondarily religious affairs,
were most sought for the temporal power they gave.
And the kings proposed to say who should possess all
temporal power in their realms.
As often as a strong king came to any of the thrones
CHURCH AND STATE 89
of western Europe with the Pope as to

this struggle
who was to fill was sure to be re-
these rich benefices
vived. It began with Charlemagne, and it persisted
for four centuries. In the days of a strong Pope, such
as Gregory VII, the papacy would control the choice
of most bishops and abbots. Under a strong king,
the crown would do the appointing, and frequently
would name laymen or notoriously unworthy clerics as
leaders in the church.
Both sides passed laws against each other. The
effectiveness of such laws depended upon the force of
the makers. In the end, as far as Germany, where the
struggle was bitterest, was concerned, it was ended
by a compromise, whereby the direct appointment of
bishops and abbots was left in the hands of the clergy,
who conferred the religious But the king
powers.
retained the power to invalidate such an election by
refusing to turn over the temporal power connected
with such offices, and so in reality held the control.
—
Married clergy. Another issue, which was more
largely within the church, was as to whether the clergy
should marry. As we have said, if a bishop could marry
and have children, it would not be long before his title
and benefice would be inherited like that of any lay
lord. But Gregory VII won the fight for a cehbate
clergy.
Legal jurisdiction. — Greater trouble was made by the
claim of the church that it alone had power to decide
legal issues concerning itself, or inwhich clergy, monks,
students, crusaders, widows, orphans, and the help-
less were involved. "All cases where the rites of the
church, or its prohibitions, were involved came ordinarily
before the church courts, as, for example, those con-
cerning marriage, wills, sworn contracts, usury, bias-
phemy, sorcery, heresy, and We do not so forth. "^
wonder that the kings did not having such a wide
relish
range of matters affecting their subjects removed from
their jurisdiction.
Taxes. —Finally, church and state broke on the
question of who was to collect the more money. It
took great sums to carry on the papal court; it took
great sums to carry on each regal court. The church
early provided for the needs of its court by collecting
a tithe of the income (not to be reckoned as an exact
tenth, but in this case a legal title for the tax) of all the
faithful and forwarding it to Rome. Then the kings
attempted to levy taxes, after the passing of the period
when they raised most of the money they wanted by
squeezing wealthy Jews, and, of course, tried to tax
the wealthy churches and monasteries with the rest.
The churchmen protested, and were upheld by the
Popes. Popes would forbid the clergy to pay taxes to
kings; kings would forbid the shipment of money out-
side the country. So the contest went on.
Dramatic Moments in the Struggle

In that long struggle there were many dramatic
moments. We can mention but three.
—
Canossa. Germany to-day still remembers, and
December night when Henry IV, the
resents, the cold
young Emperor, stood barefoot in the snow in the court-
yard of the castle of Canossa, in Italy, seeking forgive-
ness at the hands of Gregory VII, the Pope, who was
within. The Pope and the Emperor had quarreled,
principally on the subject of investitures. In the begin-
ning, Henry had the upper hand, and had called a
council of German prelates that had declared Gregory
»J. H. Robinson, Op. cit., p. 183.

CHURCH AND STATE 91
deposed. But Gregory replied by excommunicating

the king, releasing his subjects from their oaths of
allegiance;and unwise statecraft on the part of that
monarch made it seem that his most powerful nobles
would seize that opportunity to depose him. Only by
obtaining pardon from the Pope could he hold his
throne. The manner in which the Pope humihated
him marks the apex of the temporal power of that
office. Before he died Gregory had been shown that
he could not exercise such despotic power unceasingly.
—
The humiliation of John. Again the papacy showed
its power when Innocent III forced King John of
England, at the beginning of the thirteenth century,

to surrender his entire country to the Pope, and receive
it back again as a fief. John found himself in a quarrel
with the monks of Canterbury. When the Pope at
last rendered judgment the king refused to submit.
The Pope placed all England under an interdict, thus
closing the churches and keeping from all the people
the sacraments.
In an age when was thought necessary to salvation
it
to partake of the sacraments this was a terrible pun-

ishment. The people of England were incensed against
the monarch who had brought it upon them. The
Pope called upon the King of France to take an army
to punish John, and the French king joyfully prepared
to carry out the task. Fearing the anger of his people
at his back and the invasion of an enemy from abroad,
John hastened to Rome and handed over his kingdom
to Innocent. The Pope gave it back to him as his vassal.
This exhibition of kingly weakness and papal strength
helped to make the English ready to take their fate
into their own hands, and the signing of the Magna
Charta was the result.
—
The Babylonian captivity. Now we see a picture of
another sort. In 1300 the Pope proclaimed a jubilee,
and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims thronged to
Rome and rained money into the papal treasuries.
Apparently, the papacy was never stronger. But, at
the same time, a strong king was strengthening his
position at the head of France, and while the papacy
was celebrating, Philip the Fair was putting himself
at the head of a nationalistic movement that would
not recognize the right of Popes to rule in temporal
affairs.
Philip first humihated the Pope, Boniface VIII,
when one of his representatives publicly insulted him
at Anagni. And when Boniface died of a broken spirit
Philip secured the election of an archbishop of Bordeaux
to the vacant papacy, and brought it to pass that the
Popes for seventy years thereafter lived in Avignon,
a city where they were almost geographically and wholly
in practice under the control of the French monarchy.
Who Won?
This is the question we are bound
to ask after read-
ing of such a struggle. Who
won. Pope or Emperor?
Surely, the incident at Anagni and the Babylonian
captivity gives us the answer. It was a long way from
Canossa, with the barefoot Emperor humbly kneeling
in the snow, toAnagni.
Christians have always declared, and still hold, that
they work toward a day when God's will shall be the
supreme factor in all afTairs. But, until the time when
a priest or minister can be protected against the influ-
ence of ignorance, personal prejudice or self-seeking,
we will probably agree that the road from Canossa
CHURCH AND STATE 93
to Anagni was one that, for the welfare of the nations,

had to be traveled.

Upon what theory did the Pope base his assertion
1.
of supreme power? To what extent is that theory

valid? How is it to be applied in practice?
2. Describe, more fully than in this chapter, the
struggle between Gregory VII and Henry IV.
3. In what way did the effort of the papacy to control
England contribute to the liberty of the English?
4. What other reasons, besides those given in the text,
can you find for the opposition of the Pope to a married
clergy?
5. Can you, using mediaeval Europe as an example,
discover any connection between wealth and churchly
vigor?
6. Give a comprehensive definition or explanation of
these terms: Abbey; benefice; investiture; fief; interdict.
CHAPTER XI
THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE
From the crusades, we have seen, Europe passed
into the climax of that struggle that was to prove that
the church was not to exercise supreme power, save in
religious affairs. Now we are to study another develop-
ment that grew out of the same period, and was of even
more far-reaching importance.
Christianity has prospered as it has spread. That
was the proposition with which we began our course.
To it we now return for an explanation of that won-
derful period men have spoken of as the revival of
learning and the Renaissance — the days of a "new birth."
New Currents in the Minds of Europe
There are two transforming experiences that come to
most men. The first is to read a book, and the second
is to take a journey.
For years Europe, thrown into anarchy by the col-
lapse of the western Roman Empire, had been struggling
to work out a settled political order. Men had given
their first attention to that effort, often bhndly. They
had not traveled; they had not read. As a result,
their minds —
always excepting those who lived within
—
the church had gone to seed, and they had been con-
tent to accept without critical examination such doc-
gave them.
trines as their priests
Then Europe went on a journey. It brought
all
contact with a civUization immensely superior in culture

94
THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE 95
and learning to the rude, unlettered life of feudal Europe.

And men of imagination of all ranks, priests as well as
laymen, came back to begin to spread through the west
the same sort of mental outlook that had been found
in the east.
Scholasticism. —The first result was seen in the line
of teachers who attempted to reduce the thought of
that day to a system. These are generally known as
the Schoolmen, and their contribution to European life
as Scholasticism.
It isnot necessary for us to call the roll of these
Schoolmen, among whom were such keen minds as
Anselm and Abelard and Aquinas. It is sufficient to
remember that they first began to discuss theology
and philosophy in much the same way that they are
discussed to-day, and that they were not satisfied until
they had worked out balanced and consistent systems
for all these.
To be sure, they were badly restricted in their teach-
ing. Only the orthodox doctrine of the church was
then regarded as a proper subject for discussion, and
practically the only permitted author outside the writers
of the Bible was Aristotle, distorted by the bad Latin
versions in which he was studied. But for all that, and
despite the emptiness of much of the effort of these
Schoolmen, we must admit that they awakened minds
everywhere throughout western Europe to a desire to
discover underlying truths and ultimate facts.
—
The rise of the universities. Naturally, these
teachers drifted toward various centers. And naturally,
students followed to hear what the teachers might have
to say. The teachers were, in practically every case,
clergymen, but often the students had no intention of
entering the church. This, in itself, marked a trans-
formation from the days when all learning had been
confined to the cloisters.
Cities and princes began to vie with one another
to attract great teachersand large numbers of students.
Thus the universities came into being. Before the end
of the twelfth century the University of Paris was born.
Followed that the University of Bologna. Then a group
of English students became dissatisfied for some reason
in Paris and returned to their homeland to found the
University of Oxford. By the end of the thirteenth
century there were universities scattered throughout
Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, and in them was
fomenting that exuberant mental life that was to change
the whole history of the Christian Church.
Finding a Forgotten World

One of the first things that this awakening mental
life did was to lead the students to suspect the great-
ness of the past. Madly they began searching in the
debris of the centuries beneath their feet.
The rediscovery of Latin and Greek. The top —
layer, and so the first to be uncovered, was that Latin
literature from which the speech of France and Spain
and Italy derived. To be sure, Latin, in a debased
form, had been kept alive by the church in all the cen-
turies. But almost the only idea of the real glories of
Latin literature was that preserved in some of the poems
of Vergil.
To an Italian, Petrarch, who lived for seventy years
in the fourteenth century, must go much
of the honor
Latin literature. Under his
for the real rediscovery of
enthusiasm there were brought to light Cicero and
Horace and all the others of whom we think to-day
when Latin is mentioned. And the students in the
universitiesthrew themselves in a frenzy of delight

into a study of the mighty thoughts that these ancients,
whose mental hfe had been so rich, had brought forth.
Before he died Petrarch had more than a hint of
another and a greater literature hidden below Latin.
Early in the fifteenth century men began to cross from
Constantinople to Italy to teach Greek. At the middle
of the century the eastern empire at last gave up the
long struggle, and abandoned the city to the Ottoman
Turks. And then there fled to western Europe a swarm
of teachers who brought to the eager scholars Aristotle
in his original Greek form, and Plato, and Homer,
and all the rest of that glorious company who made
the name Greek synonymous with outreaching, pen-

etrating thought.
Secular literature again to the fore. — One imme-
diate effect of this expanding mental life is to be seen
in the books that began to be written. From the time
of the downfall of the Roman Empire, practically the
entire literary output had been of a religious nature.
Even the great Schoolmen had confined themselves
to theological subjects, or subjects that could be pre-
sented under theological guises.
But when these mighty Latins and Greeks began to
move about once more inside the minds qf men a new
kind of literature began to be written. Its first, and
greatest, expression came in Italy's poet, Dante. To
be sure, Dante, in his Paradise and his Purgatory, held
to religious subjects, even though he indulged in pene-
trating social criticism. But in his Monarchy the great
Italian struck out boldly into a discussion of the basis
of government, and while he remains the preeminent
poet of Catholicism, set forth a theory that repudiated
the authority of the Pope in secular affairs.
Hardly was Dante dead before Petrarch came with
his sonnets, fashioned after the Latin model. Then
came Boccaccio, whose although they smack
studies,
of the coarseness of that time, give us a satirical crit-
icism of the mediaeval church. And a Venetian, Marco
Polo, was recalled from oblivion by the widespread
publication of his travels through the Far East.
—
Erasmus. But probably the most influential voice
that spoke out of this day of awakening was that of
Erasmus. Born in Holland about ten years after Con-
stantinople fell into Turkish hands, he lived in France,
England, Italy, and Germany, and stood everywhere
as the incarnation of his time.
Erasmus was a churchman. As a boy he had been
forced into the church against his will, but once there
he was content to remain, and to bring about such
reforms as seemed necessary to him by working on the
inside. In this we find the element that distinguished
Erasmus from many who were his contemporaries. He
believed in reform, but he feared revolution. To
Erasmus, Luther and his friends must have seemed
like anarchists.
Erasmus accompHshed most through two books.
One of them was called The Praise of Folly. In it folly
was personified, and pointed out the large part it was
playing in human affairs. The hair-splitting disputes
of the were ridiculed, the monks were
theologians
plainly told that they would find themselves among
the goats on Judgment Day, and even the Pope was
satirized as one who would "turn law, religion, peace,
and all human affairs upside down." The book had
an enormous sale, and everywhere it must have made
men question the claims of the church to be an effective
spiritual agency.
Then he contributed to the discovery of a safe basis

for religionby putting on the market a Greek New
Testament. It was not a perfect piece of work, but it
was immeasurably superior to the translations in which
the Gospels and the letters of the apostles had been
preserved. Europe was by this time full of men who
were, in their souls, intensely dissatisfied with Chris-
tian doctrine as the church offered it. These, by hun-
dreds, turned to Erasmus' Testament, and there found
themselves in what seemed a new world. And many
claims that the church had been building through the
generations found it hard to support themselves when
faced with the actual Greek text upon which they were
supposed to be based.
It was largely because of those two books that later
men coined that epigram of the Reformation: "Erasmus
laid the egg, and Luther hatched it."
Three Mighty Discoveries

We close our account of this dawning of a new age
by speaking of three discoveries that were to have a
great part in bringing this new time to its fruition.
Curiously, we have learned, in later years, that these
were really not discoveries, but rediscoveries. It may
serve to make those of us who have sprung from Euro-
pean stock humbler if we are reminded that these
discoveries we once claimed so proudly as our own
had been known for generations by people we called
"uncivilized" in China.
Gunpowder. — If you mix together proper amounts
of saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal, you get a resultant
powder that, when ignited, explodes with force suffi-
cient to drive large bodies considerable distances with

great power. The gunpowder that was brought into
loo THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
use at this time not only drove its solid cannon balls
through the walls of the feudal castles, but through
the structure of feudahsm itself. And it did much to
wipe out the distinction in battle between the aristocrat
and the commoner. To a cannon ball, it made no
difference whether the man in its path wore steel armor
or a leather jerkin. War became a speciahzed pro-
fession, to be engaged in by trained bands who had
control of these murderous weapons. Because of the
costs, these professional armies could be supported only
by states. And it was no longer possible for a lord to
sit in his moated keep and defy the countryside.
The printing press. — If you have to produce every
book by hand, it is certain that books will be so few,
and their value so great, that you must chain them to
reading desks, lest they be stolen. But when, by the
use of type and presses, it is possible to produce any
number of exact copies of an original, books may be
made so cheaply that they may be possessed by almost
anyone. Of course, before printing could be of much
value, there must be something to print on. Parch-
ment was too expensive, and too rare. But by the
fourteenth century Europe was in possession of a Moor-
ish process (which had been originally obtained by
the Arabs from China) whereby cloth or certain grasses
might be turned into paper. And then Gutenberg, or
some other, showed that printing with movable types
was feasible. And a further transformation of the mind
of Europe was an inevitable result.
—
The compass. If you let a magnetized needle swing
freely in a plane parallel to the horizon, it will point
you to the north. So that a bold man, even on an
unknown sea, by the use of that instrument we know
as a compass, can always know which way he is facing.
THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE loi
And that proved knowledge enough to lure men forth

on those great voyages which were to mark the final
end of the Middle Ages and the opening of that age
of discovery that was so greatly to affect Christianity.

1. Can you suggest the contributions that univer-
sities, and other centers of learning, have made to the
spread of Christianity?
2. Why should the rediscovery of a past, at the time
of the Renaissance, have preceded the awakening of
new energies?
3. Why should the publication of a Greek New Testa-
ment have been an important event in Christian history?
4. Can you see any relation between the discovery of
gimpowder and the passing of feudalism?
5. What part did the printing press play in the rise
of Protestantism?
6. How has the compass contributed to the spread
of Christianity?
CHAPTER XII
NEW CHANNELS FOR CHRISTIANITY'S

SPREAD
Now
western Europe possesses the mariner's com-
pass. Now
the great ocean that has been tempting
beyond the pillars of Hercules for so many centuries
is no longer "trackless." Now the fire of adventure
begins to burn within the seafaring men of Portugal
and Spain and Italy and England. Now Christianity
is bestirring itself to its last and greatest crusade.
The Opening of the Age of Discovery

Even to-day, when ocean travel has become a com-
monplace, the sailing of an ocean liner is a stirring
event. Crowds gather at the docks to bid the travelers
bon voyage; often bands play; flags and handkerchiefs
flutter in salute. How stirring must have been the
departures of those years from the opening of the second
half of the fifteenth century to the close of the first
half of the sixteenth! Any caravel that dropped down
with the tide might come back with word of new lands!
In a hundred years the world more than doubled in size.
—
A world eager for knowledge. If there is one
phrase by which the period of the Renaissance may
be described, it is, "a time of mental hunger." Men
were seeking eagerly in every promising direction for
material that would feed their appetite for more knowl-
edge and a finer culture. We see, in the revival of
learning and the wonderful examples of architecture,
1 02
NEW CHANNELS 103
sculpture, and painting that date from this time, how

richly this search was rewarded.
Inevitably, this desire to know more awoke within
men the spirit of adventure. They wanted to know
what was beyond the margin of their present expe-
rience. The lands that thousands had seen during the
crusades, and that a few, such as the Polo brothers
of Venice, had seen while on solitary travels, whispered
of yet other lands where wealth awaited the first comers.
And always the sea-paths beckoned as the most direct
route to these fabled cHmes.
The Portuguese take to the sea. — On the side of
the Iberian peninsula that faced the Atlantic Uved a
people who were, for a hundred years, to exercise an
influence on human history out of all proportion to
their size. Freed from the Moors before the Spaniards,
the Portuguese began to feel early the call of the ocean.
"The northwest corner of Africa was the spot where
the navigators, who were afterward to reach India and
America, first learned their business. Here Genoese
and Portuguese seamen disputed with the Barbary
Moors for the glory of the cross and the conquest of
the Guinea coast. This coast was to the Saracens the
*Bilad Ghana,' or the Land of Wealth, and the wealth
consisted in the first instance of Negro slaves, for whom
the ships of Prince Henry of Portugal pressed down the
coast and watched the shores."^
The discovery of Cape Verde. — But these Portu-
guese seamen were really after something more than
Negro slaves, readily as the social conscience of that,
day allowed them to participate in that traffic. They
were inspired by the dream that perhaps the commonly
held belief that Africa, below its northern fringe, was
•F. S. Marvin, The Living Fast, Oxford University Press, pp. 151, 152.
I04 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
an arid waste, unfit for white residence, might be untrue,
and that, even near the equator, a land might be found
where Portugal might develop a great Christian de-
pendency that would feed wealth into the impoverished
homeland.
In 1445 the dream of the Portuguese came true!
Sailing beyond the previously explored coast one day,
a headland crowned with tropical trees and a great
river flowing into the stream from the east were dis-
covered. More Negroes were captured, and back the
little ships sailed to tell their royal master of that Cape
Verde (the green headland) they had found.

What a moment that year 1445 marked in the life
of Europe! On the Bosphorus the thunder of the Turks

at the gates of Constantinople was growing louder and
louder. Apparently, the century-long fight to hold
back Islam was to end in defeat. A German named
Gutenberg had brought into Rome a new contrivance
called a printing press, and, in a panic, the Pope hired
him to strike off indulgences for allwho would volunteer
to serve against the infidel in the East. Good men
everywhere, appalled by the excesses in the life of the
West and the approach of the enemy in the East, had
begun to fear lest Christianity be wiped out. And just
at that moment came sailing back the little ships to
report to Prince Henry the discovery of Cape Verde,
and so to usher in a new age. For the stream of dis-
coveries that were now to follow were to give Chris-
tianity, in the vigor of occupying new territory, such a
power as it had never held before!
The World a Globe

In Hereford Cathedral, in England, you may see a
map of the world drawn in the Middle Ages. The work
JERUSALEM, THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
Before the Age of Discovery, pious map-makers drew upon their imagination to
show what the world was like. This map, preserved in Hereford Cathedral, Eng-
land, shows Jerusalem as the axis about which all else centers.
NEW CHANNELS 105
of some pious monk, it shows in a fantastic fashion all

the lands and peoples, circling around Jerusalem as
the divine center of the world.
The influence of Ptolemy. As long as geographical —
knowledge was of the sort indicated by that Hereford
map, men could not get very far in discovering the
real facts about the world in which they hved. But
the Renaissance turned the minds of the navigators
away from the monkish map-makers, and back to the
astronomer Ptolemy, who had lived in Egypt in the
second century.
Ptolemy had taught that the world was a globe,
and his teaching had been generally accepted by the
educated. To be sure, certain parties in the church
had tried to show that such a conception was not in
keeping with some phrases in the Bible. But we do
not want to place too great importance on the stories
that have been told of general ignorance as to the world's
shape. One of our best authorities goes so far as to
state that "All intelligent people knew, all through the
Middle Ages, that the world was a globe."^ In 1492
-
— —
fated year! a German mariner, Behaim, made a
globe that is still preserved in Nuremberg, that shows
Europe, Asia, much of Africa, and the East Indies, with
Japan (then called Zipangu, the land of gold) lying about
half-way across the ocean between Europe and Asia.
—
The influence of spices. All these early navigators
were eager for wealth. One easily transported form
of wealth at that time was spices. Food was preserved
in spices in that day when ice was unknown, and food
that might have begun to decay could be eaten if heavily
spiced. The spice market was constant and, because
of the difficulty of bringing spices to Europe, high.
*J. H. Robinson, op. cit., p. 236.

io6 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
The Portuguese seem to have concentrated most of
their attentionupon the reaching of the regions where
spices were produced. These were known to be in the
East, somewhere beyond India, for the spices had been
transported for generations by the Mohammedans
from their home and deHvered at eastern Mediterranean
ports to Itahan traders, who distributed them through
western Europe.
By i486 Diaz, a Portuguese, had rounded the Cape
of Good Hope, and the western coast of Africa was
known to the white man. From that time it was inev-
itable that the explorers would press on until, as hap-
pened in 1498, they made the jump from the eastern
coast across the Indian Ocean, to find themselves in
Calicut. And from that base it was but a few years
before the Portuguese were in possession of the richest
of the islands to the southeast of Asia.
Columbus and the great discovery. —Now bring to-
gether this desire for spices and easy wealth and this
theory that the world is a globe. Mix them in the
eager minds of such an age. What will inevitably
happen? Keen heads began to believe that the long
route of the Portuguese might be shortened, and the
wealth they sought much more
cheaply attained, by
sailing westward until theEast Indies should be reached.
Of course, the great name that we remember as having
neld this idea is that of Christopher Columbus. This
Genoese sailor, stirred by the Portuguese successes,
tried in vain for a time to secure enough backing to
make it possible forhim to try his better plan. The
cities of his own Italyhad been too hard hit by the
capture of Constantinople by the Turks to be ready
to finance such an undertaking. The Portuguese were
content to develop the route they had already begun
NEW CHANNELS 107
to open. But at last, at the court of Ferdinand and

Isabella, where the new union of Spain as a power free
from the Moor was bringing new energies, Columbus
found his chance.
In five weeks Columbus had calculated that, by sail-
ing east, he would reach Japan, with its fabled riches.
In thirty-two days he did sight land, but we all know
that it was not Japan. Three times the great adventurer
returned to the scenes of his first quest, and although
he came to know that he was not in Japan, to the day
of his death he never dreamed that he had found a
New World.
The Age of Discovery
And now, as the sixteenth century unfolds, we find
ourselves in a perfect rush of exploration. Scarcely a
year but sees new expeditions starting, and a resulting
widening in the borders of our knowledge. We can
only stop to get a brief impression of these mighty
days.
—
The Portuguese sail east. The Portuguese, as we
have seen, held to the long route around the continent
of Africa. Six years after Columbus first reached the
New World, Vasco de Gama reached India. In 15 12
his successors were in Java, and within a few years
these adventurers had explored and fortified that great
Malay Archipelago, almost two thousand miles in
extent. Then, in 15 19, a Portuguese named Magellan,
after starting in the familiar southerly direction, turned
west instead of east, and disappeared from men's knowl-
edge on the other side of the Straits of Magellan, at
the southmost tip of South America. Three years later
Magellan's ship came sailing back, this time from the
east, and lo, the world had been circumnavigated!
io8 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
—
The Spaniards follow Columbus. Columbus had
pointed the way for the mariners of Spain. Before his
death the flags of Castile waved from almost every
island in the West Indies, and a footing had been won
in South America. In quick succession Balboa crossed
the Isthmus of Panama to discover the Pacific from the
other side of the continent; Cortez conquered the Aztec
empire in Mexico; and Pizarro took possession of Peru.
Spain's discoveries and conquests in the New World
proved far more valuable than those of the Portuguese
on the other side of the globe, and furnished much of
the wealth upon which the great empire of Charles V
and Philip II was built.
—
The English enter the game. At the same time
the English were bestirring themselves. They had in
view the old goal of an easy access to the islands whence
came the spices, but they were induced by another
Genoese, Cabot, to seek it in a northwesterly direction.
As a result, the English interests were first planted in
Newfoundland, and were spread, during the next cen-
tury, along the coast of North America. And soon
adventurous EngUshmen, part traders, part pirates, and
part slavers, were disputing with the Spaniards for the
control of the West Indies and the northern coasts of
South America.
—
In a hundred years. At the half-way point in the
fifteenth century we have seen the Pope in torment
because the effort to hold back the power of Islam has
failed, and Christianity is being compressed in upon
itself. A hundred years pass, and we see the best blood
in western Europe pressing to the conquest of lands
distant by thousands of miles of ocean. What a cen-
tury it must have been!
NEW CHANNELS 109
New Roadways for the Gospel

In all this we need to remember
story of discovery
members of the Catholic
that these navigators were good
Church. Never the ship sailed into the unknown but
that it had been blessed by the clergy, and carried at
its masthead the banner of the cross. Never the new
land was opened to exploration and colonization but
that there came ashore with the soldier and his firelock
the priest and his baptismal water. And when the age
of discovery came to an end we see, as we study it
from this distance, that there had been opened on
every sea innumerable roadways down which the
gospel was to pass to the evangelization of great por-
tions of the earth.

1. Who was Ptolemy, and how has he influenced
history?
2. To what extent was Marco Polo a forerunner of
the explorers of the fifteenth century?

3. Why did the fall of Constantinople seem a catas-
trophe? Was it?
4. Which voyage accomplished most, that of Colimibus
or that of Magellan?
5. Can you perceive how the landing of the Spanish
in South and Central America, and of the English in
North America, affected the later religious history of
those regions?
CHAPTER XIII
THE ROMAN THEORY OF THE CHURCH

CHALLENGED
See what a stage we now have set for events! The
strugglebetween Pope and king for dominance in
affairs of state has been decided in favor of the kings,
and nationality begins to be a ruling force. The birth
of the universities and the rediscovery of ancient Hter-
atures fling open the doors of men's minds, and they
are ready to embark upon all sorts of mental adven-
tures. The mariners have sailed east and west, north
and south, on the search for the elusive spices, and men
prove ready for all sorts of physical adventures. And
now we are to find them, under the spell of this same
mood, ready to launch out upon all sorts of spiritual
quests. For we have arrived at the time of the
Reformation.
The Church a State

To understand what happened in this period we
must remember what sort of an organization the church
had become during the Middle Ages.
The mediaeval theory of the church.—To all in-
tents, thechurch stood as a great state within all the
other states. The kings had been able to repudiate its
claim to be above all the other states, but none, up to
this time, had challenged its right to exist coextensively
with France and Germany and Italy and the rest.
Treason against the church. —The central idea, on

no
THE ROMAN THEORY CHALLENGED in
which this vast organization had been erected, was
the necessity for a unity of faith. To
secure this it was
necessary, so it was have one head, one author-
held, to
itative body of doctrine, and one recognized body and
fount of laws. The kings were ready to support this
theory with their temporal power, because it helped
to reduce disorder and increase discipline among the
masses. It frequently happened, however, that on
minor matters the kings and Popes disagreed.
Treason against this authoritative doctrine and uni-
j5.ed organization became regarded as one of the worst
of all possible crimes. The Inquisition was set up in

order that the first signs of such treason might be de-
tected and exterminated, and the record of the church
was blotted with the hideous measures sometimes used
in punishing alleged heresy. Furthermore, to make
sure that bishops in distant places were not taking
advantage of their remoteness to weaken the authority
of the supreme pontiff, the Pope employed personal
representatives, or legates, who traveled about from
country to country, exercising absolute power wherever
they went.
—
The empire of Charles V. In the same year that
Magellan embarked upon his great voyage, 1519, there
came to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire the
grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V. Already
he was Duke of Brabant, Margrave of Antwerp, Count
of Holland, Archduke of Austria, Count of Tyrol, King
of Spain and Naples, and of the Spanish possessions in
America. To these were now added the emperorship
of Germany and control of much territory in northern
Italy. So that before he was twenty years of age,
Charles ruled over one of the greatest empires of mod-
em times.
Charles shared very little the new movements that
were changing Europe. He was a devout Catholic,
and he determined to use the orthodox faith, as Con-
stantine had done, to cement together the scattered
units of his empire. Thus he became the Pope's chief
secular support.
But the great mistake of Charles, in dealing with
his empire, was his decision to transfer its center to
Spain. In a way, that seemed the wise move, for it
was to Spain that the immense wealth of the New
World was flowing. But this served to increase the
suspicion of the northern princes, and made them the
more ready to support any movement that aimed at
any authority in the south. Had it not been for this
spirit of semi-independence on the part of the German
lords, it is difl&cult to see how what did happen could
have happened at that time.
Luther's First Challenge
Northern Europe had never been as closely knit to

the papacy as the south. Early in the sixteenth cen-
tury all Germany was in a mood of resentment against
Rome that offered an opportunity to any revolt.
—
The part played by indulgences. German princes
and people found most exasperation in the steadily
increasing demands made by the papal court upon the
wealth of Germany. At that time the Pope, inspired
by the artistic enthusiasm of the age (for the Pope,
Leo X, with whom Luther had most of his troubles,
was a member of the famous Medici family who gave
Italy so many of its finest artistic possessions), desired
to complete the papal cathedral, Saint Peter's in Rome,
in the magnificent style in which we know it to-day.
THE ROMAN THEORY CHALLENGED 113
And to obtain the vast sum needed, a liberal sale of

indulgences was fostered throughout Christendom.
These indulgences were an outgrowth of Catholic
theology. It was held that most men could not, even
by confession and the doing of penance, wipe out the
full score of sins for which they must be punished in
this life, but that they must, in an after-state called

purgatory, be further punished and thus cleansed
before they could be admitted to the holy presence
of God.
But the Pope was the all-powerful representative of
God. So it was held that the Pope could issue a pardon,
or indulgence, that would reduce the punishment a
contrite sinner would have to undergo in purgatory.
The worst feature of the system was its use to raise
revenue, for these indulgences came to be granted
upon a regular scale of pay, so much to the poor man,
and so much more to the rich.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century repre-
sentatives of the Pope began to appear all over western
Europe, zealously collecting money in this manner.
In their enthusiasm they made many claims for the
efficiency of the indulgences they were selling that no
church authority would have upheld. But the cred-
ulous people flocked to buy them, and the local lords
became more and more incensed as they saw the stream
of money thus increased that was flowing southward
over the Alps.
The appearance of Luther. —^This indulgence selling
was to bring to public attention an Augustinian monk,
Martin Luther, who had been rapidly coming to the
front as one of the leaders of his order in Germany.
Born shortly before Diaz rounded the Cape of Good
Hope, the son of peasants, Luther, after a brilliant
university career, when a life of prominence as a lawyer
seemed assured, suddenly renounced the world, entered
a monastery, and became a begging monk.
As a member of the Augustinians, Luther soon at-
tracted the attention of the head of the order in Germany,
and because of his mental powers was rapidly advanced.
But he failed to find the spiritual peace he sought in
the life when the business of his
of the church, even
order took him to Rome, until he was mastered by the
great words of Saint Paul, "The just shall Hve by faith."
Rejecting any hope of attaining merit by his own deeds,
or the possibihty that a sinful man could so attain,
Luther threw himself, with all his hopes and needs,
alone, without help of church or priest or rite, into the
hands of God, and rejoiced to find an inner peace
that was to him evidence that God had pardoned and
accepted him.
In 1508 Luther was made a professor in the recently
established university at Wittenberg. Four years later
he was made a Doctor of Theology, and began to thrill
his students with lectures on the writings of Saint Paul
and the Psalms that showed the influence of his own
spiritual experience. Religion he knew, not so much
as the playing of a carefully marked out part in a vast
churchly organization, but as an immediate contact
between the individual soul and God. And that was
a return, in essence, to the teaching of Saint Paul.
—
The ninety-five theses. By one of the deals all too
common in that age, the Pope gave a certain German
ecclesiastical lord, whom he had appvointed to certain
benefices for which large tribute had to be paid to
Rome, the right to half the proceeds from such sale of
indulgences as might be made in his domains. The
elector of Saxony, in which was Wittenberg, refused to
allow this money-draining business to enter his terri-

tory. But as one of the most successful hawkers of
these indulgences approached the border, Luther, who
saw the common people mulcting themselves to buy,
determined to thresh out the whole question as to the
right or wrong of the traffic. Accordingly, he posted
on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg a thesis
of ninety-five propositions, dealing with various phases
of the matter, and invited all who would to discuss
these with him.
To Luther, with his personal conception of religion,
the theory on which the indulgences rested seemed
wrong. But he was no man to forge blindly ahead,
and his invitation to discussion was a sincere one.
No one, however, appeared to dispute his propositions.
Listead, they were greeted by princes and people, alike
exasperated by the extortions of the clergy, with enthusi-
asm. They were translated from the Latin in which
Luther had written them into all the languages of
western Europe, and within a month the young pro-
fessor found himself an international figure.
Luther Defies the Pope

Luther now found himself launched on a tide that
was to carry him to strange ports. But never has
history known a man with more complete courage for
the part he was called upon to play.
First efforts to suppress Luther. Naturally, tne —
attack upon the indulgences, however it may have
been received by the laity, did not arouse enthusiasm
among the indulgence-sellers. Formal complaint was
made to the Pope against the presumptuous pro-
fessor and the cry raised that, in attacking the
ii6 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
indulgences, their author, the Pope, was attacked.
Luther was ordered, after a perfunctory examination
of the case, to retract; refused, and appealed to a
future general council of the church to sustain his
position.
Followers came to him from both clergy and laity.
One of his fellow professors at Wittenberg engaged in
a debate with an orthodox champion, and Luther was
drawn into the controversy. The supporter of the
existing order skillfully maneuvered Luther to the point
where he admitted that he believed that a general
council of the church could err.
By Luther had, in the view of the
this admission
church, proved himself a heretic. First, he had rejected
the absolute authority of the Pope; now he rejected that
of the general councils. What room was there for
one whose teaching ultimately came back to the author-
ity of an individual's own spiritual experience, tested
only by what that individual might discover in the
Bible? A papal bull of condemnation was issued.
And Luther, to show his determination, publicly
burned the bull!
The diet of Worms. —
Now comes Charles V, em-
Holy Roman Empire, to gather his
peror-elect of the
German princes in an imperial diet at Worms and
settle the questions of this portion of his realms. It
is a high moment in the history of his empire. It is
also a high moment in world history, for Magellan's
ship is just beating its way back from the first circum-
navigation of the globe, and new ideas can travel fast
and far. One of the first matters with which Charles
finds it necessary to deal is the disciplining of a certain
university professor, Martin Luther by name, who
has been writing books that the Pope has condemned
as heretical and for whom the papal legate seeks pun-

ishment.
Probably the twenty-year-old Emperor knows very
little about the case, but the representative of the
Pope tells him that he has been unable to inflict pun-
ishment previously because this professor enjoys the
favor of the Elector of Saxony and the support of many
other nobles. Charles feels that he must proceed care-
fully in dealing with a man with such backing, and
proposes that he be called to Worms for examination.
The papal legate protests. The Pope has already
examined and judged. It remains only for the Emperor
to punish. But the Emperor cannot afford to offend
the powerful Elector, and Luther is given a safe-conduct
that brings him to Worms.
There isno chance, however, for him to argue his
position. He is shown a pile of the condemned books.
"Did you write those?"
"Yes, and more."
"Will you retract what you have written?"
Everything hinges on the answer. Luther asks for
a day in which to consider, and is granted it. The next
day he is back, again facing the incarnation of the power
of empire and church.
"Will you retract?"
"I cannot. Here I stand. God help me, Amen!"
The Emperor has no choice. To the excommunica-
tion of the Pope is added the condemnation of the
monarch. Luther from that day is, legally, an outlaw.
But his friends prove powerful enough to protect him.
He is hidden away for ten months in one of the castles
of the Elector of Saxony, and then comes out to lead
in the movement that history knows as the Reformation,
until he dies in 1546.
ii8 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
What Luther Accomplished

We cannot tell, in detail, the way in which the Prot-
estant movement developed. Certain nobles, deter-
mined that they would no longer see Germany ruled
from abroad, gave Luther political support; many
scholars, of whom the greatest was Philip Melanchthon,
acclaimed this as a return to the simplicity of the apos-
tolic church and an opportunity for a reverent but free
study of Christian truth. The empire of Charles V was
so widely scattered that the monarch was under the
constant necessity of shifting from one part to another
to put down incipient revolts. Thus he was never able
to bring all his forces to the crushing of Luther and his
supporters. To the support of nobles and scholars Lu-
ther added that of the masses when he translated the
Bible into idiomatic German —a remains
version that
—
standard to this day and so identified himself and his
Protestant cause with popular culture. The combina-
tion of political strength, scholarly approval, and popu-
lar enthusiasm soon made the Reformation permanent.
The princes choose their subjects' faith. —
It was typical of the time that, when an adjustment
was at last reached, about ten years after Luther had
died, it was not the people who were left to decide
whether they should be Catholic or Protestant, but
their rulers. Europe to-day still shows division based
upon the choices which, for varied reasons, the princes
made at that time. In general, it can be said that all
the old Roman Empire, save Britain, held to the Roman
Catholic Church, and the rest of western- and northern
Europe became Protestant.
—
Personal religion. The great achievement of Luther,
from a religious standpoint, was his reassertion of the
rights of the individual. When he was born it was

the welfare of the church that was paramount. When
he died there was open to men a way of worship whereby
they might assert their own priesthood, and might
seek direct contact with the Divine. Protestantism
represents the protest, echoed by increasing numbers
as the years have passed, against any rite or any organ-
ization coming between an individual soul and its God.
On the other hand, Protestantism declared that any
soul can find itself brought into the presence and favor
of God at any time, by an act of faith.

1. Give a complete outline of the life of Luther.
2. Why were many of the princes of Germany favor-
able to Luther?
3. Tell of Luther's connection with the Peasants'
Revolt. What were the results of his actions in that
connection ?
4. Give a sketch of the life and work of Melanchthon.
5. What great contribution did Luther make to German

literature?
6. How many differences can you discover between
Catholic and Protestant doctrine?
7. How did the name "Protestant" originate? Do you
consider it a good title for the movement led by Luther?
CHAPTER XIV
CATHOLICISM ENTERS NEW WORLDS
We must not make the mistake of thinking that the
effect of the Reformation was confined to the new
Protestant churches, or to the regions in which they
were in the ascendant. In fact, the movement led by
Luther served to bring to a head the desire for reform
that had been growing within the Roman Catholic
Church for generations.
We know that thinking men, like Erasmus and many
before him, had admitted the need of reform within
CathoHcism. All Europe was scandalized when, for
almost forty years about a century before the time of
Luther, there were rival Popes, each cursing the other
and declaring his own the only valid title to the office.
Looseness of administration and living became common
within the church.
How TO Reform a Church

The question in the minds of thoughtful CathoUcs
was how the needed reform could be secured. They
did not wish to follow Luther into a new church, but
how could they make their own worthy of respect?
The Protestant Reformation showed them that they
must do something, and immediately. Three general
methods of procedure were tried.
—
Rooting out heresy. During the years while Spain
had been gaining power as a unified monarchy, the
church there had been coming to a place of great influ-
120
CATHOLICISM ENTERS NEW WORLDS 121
ence. To a large extent leaders of the Spanish church

ascribed this to the practice of the Inquisition. So they
now urged that the same method be followed wherever
the Catholic Church could command the support of
the civil powers.
We view the Inquisition with such horror in this day
that, ifwe are ever to understand how it came to be
used,we must remember the sort of ideas that held the
minds of the priests who promoted it. For they were
men who honestly beUeved that a man's eternal salva-
tion depended upon his mental acceptance of the the-
ories that the Roman Catholic Church had pronounced
true. If a man differed from those views in any par-
ticular they held that he was doomed to eternal tor-
ment. And so they came to think themselves justified
in taking any means to force men to recant opinions
that would doom them to a torment more horrible than
any possible in this life.
But, however sincere the men who started the In-

quisition, it soon became an institution so unruly that
it could not be controlled. Anonymous testimony was
accepted; the accused rarely had a full chance for de-
fense. A man accused of heretical beliefs was held
guilty until he proved himself innocent. And the pun-
ishments meted out were horrible. A visitor to the
torture chambers of the Inquisition that still remain in
various parts of Europe finds it hard to believe that

this monstrosity existed in the name of any religion, let
alone that of Jesus.
Some apologists for the Inquisition have pointed out
that was not the church that executed its victims.
it
Technically this is true. But it was the church that

condemned, and then handed the condemned over to a
complacent civil authority, knowing full well that tor-
ture and death would result. The responsibility for
hundreds of deaths lies squarely at the door of the Ro-
man Catholic Church.
This method of reform, which was supposed to root
out destructive ideas, was used largely throughout
the Catholic portions of the empire of Charles V and
his son, Philip II. It was successful in killing the Prot-
estant stirrings that were just beginning in Italy and
Spain, but it could not accomplish much in countries
such as Germany, the Netherlands, England, and
Scotland. And
Catholicism came to see that stern
repression alone would never bring the world back to
what thought was the true faith.
it
The adjustment —
of abuses. A second method took
the form of what politicians might call a house-cleaning.
Years were spent, in the Council of Trent and elsewhere,
reforming the inner life of the church. From this time
there have been few leaders of the Roman Cathohc
Church whose characters have not been in keeping
with the offices they have held. The open forms of
bribery that had accompanied appointments to some
positions were abolished. To match the effort of the
Protestants to reach the common people with versions
of the Bible in the vernacular, there were printed other
vernacular versions that were approved by the Pope.
And it is a striking fact that at just about this time
the Catholic Church was able to point to believers within
itsranks as saintly as any it has ever produced.
—
A missionary church. But it was left to another
method to prove the real power of the Catholic counter-
reformation. It is said that the great soldier, Marshal
Foch, has laid down, as a military maxim, the sentence,
"The best defensive is an offensive." Catholicism may
have felt itself put on the defensive by the challenge
of Luther and his followers. But it possessed men of

keen enough insight to see that the best answer to this
would be a new offensive, and soon there were in every
known land missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church,
who launched the greatest campaign that church had
ever undertaken. In that outreaching effort Cathol-
icism found the regenerating virtue that has preserved
it to these days.
Loyola and His Band

The story of this Catholic missionary expansion is
largely the story of the Society of Jesus.

—
Ignatius Loyola. In the year that Luther appeared
in the Diet of Worms, a Spanish cavalier, Inigo Lopez
de Recalde, received a wound in a battle with the French
that sent him to the hospital, where he spent months
in a slow convalescence. He knew that he could never
fight again, but the reading of the lives of some of the
saints and the influence of his own ideals of chivalry
determined him to enlist in another kind of warfare.
He would become a knight of the Virgin.
Rapidly he acquired the knowledge that in his former
life had been neglected, but that now, as a soldier of
the church, he knew he would need. In the year that

another man of whom we will hear, John Calvin, left
the University of Paris, Ignatius Loyola, to give him
the name by which the church remembers him, entered
the same institution. Here he found a group of con-
genial spirits who were ready to unite with him in
a vow to labor for the conversion of men, preferably
in Jerusalem, or wherever else the church, through the
Pope, might order.
As this little group left the university it began to take
the form which has made it such a power. Loyola
organized it as a military company, with each soldier
required to give instant and complete obedience to his
superiors, and the commanding general taking his
orders directly from the Pope. Recruits were carefully
studied in order that their individual talents might be
discovered, and then they were set at tasks for which
they were most fitted. But the wishes of individual
members were always to be subordinated to the will
of the whole.
To this company Loyola gave the name of the Society
of Jesus. Much opposition was manifested to it at
first by representatives of the older orders within the
church, but the Pope saw what an instrument he pos-
sessed in it and ap-
for the carrying out of his will,
proved it. From the day of the Pope's approval the
Jesuitsgrew with amazing swiftness.
—
The work of the Jesuits. Loyola had formed his
order with the idea of working in the Holy Land. The
Pope, however, had greater troubles on his hands than
the Turks presented just then, and sent the order to
conduct a counter-offensive against the preachers of the
Protestant churches. The Protestants were divided
among themselves, seeking to work out doctrinal state-
ments to which aU would agree, and the Jesuits quickly
took advantage of the opening to win back for the
Roman Church much territory that might have been
expected to be Protestant.
The Jesuits confined their attention to preaching, the
practice of confessional, and teaching.
the Of the
three, the latterproved the most important. The order
soon gathered within itself the keenest minds in Cathol-
icism, and these were used to conduct schools of such
a high grade that pupUs from the best families of Europe,
some of them Protestant, crowded to be taught. There
was an avowed attempt to work with the upper grades

of society. The result was inevitable. What the ter-
rors of the Inquisition had not been able to do the
many cases accomplished.
training of the Jesuits in
Roman —
Catholic missions. But there was in the
Society of Jesus that which, from the beginning, made
it not content to confine its labors to Europe. If it
was a military company, it proved also an expeditionary
force. As we have already seen (see Chapter XI) the
men who were discovering new continents and new
roads to old lands at this time were all good churchmen.
Almost from the beginning of the voyages of discovery
the missionary priest was an expected part of every crew.
The older Catholic orders, notably the Franciscans and
Dominicans, had a great part in this missionary effort,
but it was the zeal of the Jesuits that suppHed the
driving power for the whole campaign. Before the end
of the seventeenth century Catholic missions were
firmly established in South, Central, and large parts
of North America; India; Japan; China, and the islands
of the Pacific.
The very eagerness of these Catholic orders often
proved their undoing. Little love was lost between
them, and they became involved in intrigues against
one another that roused the fear of the rulers of the
lands where they were working, leading sometimes to
repression. Finally such tangles became so frequent
that the Pope instituted a Congregation for the Prop-
agation of the Faith, which, to this day, supervises the
missionary work of the Roman Catholic Church in all
the earth.
\ Great Catholic Missionary

Among the student friends of Loyola who formed
the Society of Jesus was one, Francis Xavier, destined
to be known as the greatest of aU Cathohc missionaries.
—
Xavier in India. The early voyages of the Portu-
guese had secured for them a colony at Goa, in India.
In 1540 the Jesuit general, at the request of the king of
Portugal, commissioned Xavier to proceed there for
missionary work. It took him a year to reach his post.
His principal work was with the pearl-fishers, low-
caste natives who had accepted baptism in order to be
protected from Mohammedan pirates. Xavier endeav-
ored to give these pseudo-converts some idea of what
it meant to be real Christians, but with results that
he himself saw were far from ideal.

—
In Japan and at the gates of China. Xavier's was
a restless spirit. He never remained long enough in one
place to master an Oriental language. In a few years
he had worked his way to Malacca, and there he met
a runaway Japanese criminal, whom he converted,
and whose report of Japan determined him to press
on to that island. For about two years and a half
Xavier hved in Japan, trudging barefoot through its
scenes of beauty, and laying the foundations for that
Cathohc work that grew to such remarkable propor-
tions, and was wiped out with such bloodshed in the
first half of the seventeenth century, when Japan sealed
itself away from the world for two hundred years.
From Japan the great Jesuit attempted to enter China,

but while still waiting for a propitious opportunity on
a small island off the southern coast, he died. It has
been said that his last words, as he viewed that rocky
coast from which he had been turned back, were: "O
rock, rock, wilt thou never break?"
—
Xavier's weakness and strength. Xavier proved
but the first of a great company of Jesuit missionaries,
most of whom followed in the paths he had marked

out. The weaknesses of such work as his have been
frequently pointed out. In a word, the CathoHc mis-
sions have suffered from superficiaHty. There is all
too often little change in the lives of those who are
counted as converts.
This fault rises inevitably out of the acceptance of
baptism as a saving rite. Not only Xavier, but to this
day earnest Catholic missionaries in the Orient will
baptize children, sometimes without the knowledge
of the parents, believing that the act insures the ultimate
presence of the chUd in heaven.
Yet the earnestness of such a man as Xavier is not
to be questioned, and the heroism that he displayed
in penetrating regions so hostile and inaccessible was
of the highest order. His spirit with his converts was
gentle, and he remains one of those Christians to whom
all, of whatever communion, are glad to accord the
title "saint." Reading one of his letters, one seems

to be listening to just such an appeal as the Student
Volunteer Movement is making in these days:
Would to God that these men who labor so much in

gaining knowledge would give as much thought to the
account they must one day give to God of the use they
have made of their learning and of the talents intrusted
to them! . . . They would exclaim from the bottom of
their hearts, "Lord, here am send
whithersoever
I; me
it shall please thee, even to India !" I declare to God
. . .
that I had almost made up my mind, since I coiild not

return to Europe myself, to write to the University of
Paris ... to show them how many thousands of infidels
might be made Christians without trouble, if we had
only men here who would seek not their own advantage,
but the things of Jesus Christ. And, therefore, dearest
brothers, "pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he send
forth laborers into his harvest."

1. In what European countries was the Catholic
Church able to hold its position? By what methods
did it do this?
2. What arguments might be made in justification of
such an institution as the Inquisition?

3. Why did the Society of Jesus as organized make a
special appeal to that age?
4. What can you discover about other Catholic mis-
sionaries of this period, apart from Xavier?
5. How did the territory gained for the Catholic Church
by the missionary enterprises of the counter-reformation
compare with that lost by the Reformation?
6. What methods used by the Jesuits do you consider
of especial value in Christian work, and why?

CHAPTER XV
WHO WAS TO SPREAD CHRISTIANITY?
We have practically reached the half-way point in

our study. We have been tracing sixteen centuries of
development in the life of the Christian Church. We
have seen it grow from a small group within the Jewish
community to the mightiest organization in the world.
And now we have considered the Protestant
that
Reformation and the missionary activities of the Catholic
counter-reformation we are ready to pause and sum
up what we have studied.
This we can do most successfully by facing the ques-
tion that forms the title of this chapter. We are now
at the opening of the period of Christianity's greatest
expansion. Sixteen centuries of preparation are fin-
ished. Who is it that Christianity will now rely upon

to spread its message?
A Broadening World
How the world had grown since Jesus had spoken
those parting words to his followers! "Go ye there-
fore, and make disciples of all the nations," he had
said. It had seemed an impossible commission, even
in that day.
—
One world evangelized. Yet those early Christians
threw themselves into their task with such devotion
that, within two centuries, they were able to claim that
their world had been evangelized. Peter went to Rome;
Paul beyond Rome to Spain, and perhaps even to
Britain; Thomas, if tradition is to be accepted, even
129
to India. And Origen, the great Christian teacher
who died in the middle of the third century, could
write: "In a few years and with no great store of teachers,
in spite of the attacks that have cost us life and prop-
erty, the preaching of the word has found its way into
every part of the world."
—
Another world discovered. But Christians soon
discovered that there were nations in a world beyond
the borders of that they had known in the days of the
Roman Empire. So we have seen how Christian preach-
ers reached the Goths, the Franks, the Irish, the Ger-
mans, the Scandinavians. In another part of Europe
we have seen them bringing the Bulgarians and then
the Russians to the worship of Christ. They have
penetrated into Armenia, Abyssinia, and other places
that had been on the outer rim of the Roman world.
There are even Nestorian missionaries who penetrate
to India and China, but their work has not the sup-
port necessary for permanence.
The world we know to-day. Then follow long —
years when there is little missionary enterprise. The
church is consoHdating its place as a ruler of the affairs
of men. It becomes too busy with questions of poHtics
to pay much attention to peoples in regions beyond its
own territories. In the thirteenth century the great
Kublai Khan sits on the throne of China. He hears
enough of Christianity to send a request to the Pope
that at least a hundred qualified missionaries be sent
to work in his dominions. But the papal court is so
engrossed in its own petty intrigues that the best it
can do is to send off two timid monks, and this price-

less opportunity is allowed to pass.
Then the ships of the explorers begin to come saiUng
home. China, Japan, the Philippines, India, even a
WHO WAS TO SPREAD CHRISTIANITY? 131
New World, become, not fabled lands for the dwelling

of a Prester John, but real places, inhabited by real
men, and filled with real wealth. And immediately
—
the rush toward this New World the same world we
—
know to-day begins. And with the explorers go the
missionaries, conscious of the immense broadening
that has come in the bounds of "the world" to which
they have been bidden "go."
A Broadening Christian Leadership

It is a heartening thing to see how, with this broaden-
ing of the world, there had come a broadening of the
church's conception of what makes a Christian saint.
Let us recall the different ideals that had been held
before men as the best type of Christian life and leader-
ship.
The apostolic ideal.—Jesus called upon his immedi-
ate followers to go out spreading the good news of his
kingdom without encumbering themselves withany
material things that might tend to tie any one
them to
place. They were to take neither scrip nor staff, and they
were to go, and go, and go. The best disciple would be
the one who gave himself most completely to the dis-
semination of the gospel, and who separated himself
most completely from other affairs of life. We can see
how the apostolic group took this ideal to heart by the
legends that surround their deaths. Only a few of
them are reputed to have died in Palestine. The others
were scattered even beyond the Roman world.
The earliest ideals of the church. —After the period
of the apostles, whenchurch first began to
the
become a powerful organization, it found itself in the
midst of the licentiousness that marked the life of
the decadent Roman Empire. It is not surprising,
then, that it came to hold almost all social life as evil,
and that, to attain Christian perfection, men were
taught that they must withdraw themselves utterly
from contact with the world.
The example of that type of Christian leader most
often remembered was Saint Anthony, who was born
about the middle of the third century. He Hved in
solitude, as a hermit. He believed himself tormented
by demons, and temptation came to him as it naturally
would to one living such an unnatural sort of life. He
spent his days in the strictest self-denial, subjecting
his body most rigorous discipline. And so power-
to
fully did hisexample appeal to his fellow Christians
that soon the deserts and sohtary places were full of
the cells of hermits, living alone or in small colonies.
The monastic ideal in Europe. — This form of sol-
itary self-torture went to most extreme lengths in the
East. There was, in the nature of the peoples of Europe,
something that saved them from such excesses as,
for example, Simeon the Styhte practiced when he Hved
for thirty years on top of a pillar. And within a couple
of hundred years there arose a beHef in the West that
the highest type of Christian would save himself from
much needless temptation by spending the hours while
he was withdrawn from the world in useful labor. Out
of this advance in insight arose the monasteries.
Saint Benedict remains the finest illustration of the
monastic ideal of Christian leadership. Although he
still believed with all his heart that the world was
essentially evil and that the only way to possess an

unsullied Christian character was to flee from it, Saint
Benedict went from his cave in the mountains east of
Rome to found the first monastery of the order that
bears his name.
In this monastery Saint Benedict ordered that as

much time be given to work as to worship. "Idleness
is the enemy of the soul," he declared. This work was
partly in the fields and partly in the hbrary. And it
is to the monasteries that we owe the preservation of

such learning as lived through Europe's dark ages.
It is no exaggeration to say that the best men of the
Middle Ages were to be found within the monasteries.
The preaching orders.-—The monastic ideal sufficed
to express the conception of Christian leadership until
at least the thirteenth century. Then it began to dawn
upon men that all the spiritual problems of the world
would not be solved by gathering the best Christians in
groups largely out of touch with the world. In some
parts of Europe teaching became rife that the church
declared heretical, and out of the desire to counteract
this teaching arose the great preaching orders that
were, for centuries, to provide the leadership of the
church.
The best illustration of this type of Christian leader-
ship is that given us by Saint Dominic. A child of the
Middle Ages, this intense Spaniard, horrified by some
of the heretical preachingwhich he touched in parts
of Spain and France, determined to model his life on
that of Saint Paul and win these mistaken ones by a
superior purity of life combined with a continuous
crusade of preaching.
Here was a type of Christian effort that appealed to
men who had begun to recoil from the aloofness and
abuses of monastic life. Although Dominic lived but
five years after his order had been recognized, he saw
it gather to its ranks men of the highest grade from all
over Europe. Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas,

Savonarola, and hundreds of other great men of that
134 THE SPREAD. OF CHRISTIANITY
period were Dominicans. A recent historian thus sums
up the contribution that Dominic's order made to the
broadening of the conception of Christian leadership:
"Its ideal was not contemplation apart from the world,
"^
but access to men in their needs.
—
The missionary. There was one more step that was
logically to come in this development. The preaching
orders had brought Christians to realize that the best
type of faith was that which spent itself in carrying
its message to others. Now it was time for men to see
that these others included not only the inhabitants
of Europe, but those who lived in the New World, in
Africa, in the Orient, and in the isles of the sea. So
there appeared that leader whom we still know, the
missionary.
We have spoken of Saint Francis Xavier as a typical
example of this sort of Christian leader. We must
remember that, with him, there went to the remote
parts of the earth not only his brothers in the Jesuit
order but Franciscans and Dominicans as well. And,
after a long period of readjustment and consolidation
had passed, we will see Protestants engaging in the
same crusade. The Christian leader has become once
more, as he was in the day of the apostles, one who
seeks earth's farthest shore with the good news of Jesus.
—
The administrator. Along with this development,
there comes a parallel growth that, in another way, is
to prove equally important for the final spread of Chris-
tianity. the rise of the administrator, that
This is
may be traced in the history of the Popes.

It is not necessary to go over this long story again,
nor even to suggest individual examples. But, by the
1 Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, Charles Scribner's Sons,

publishers, p. 256.
time that Saint Francis Xavier and his companions

are launching their missionary campaigns, we find that
there has come, at the home base from which they
set forth, a leader who is to supervise their efforts and
provide their support. And increasingly this leader
is to have his interests restricted until he is giving
practically his full attention to the direction of the
religious enterprise.
Ready for the Great Advance

We have come, then, to the perception of our modern
world. We are facing the years of Christianity's great-
est advance. The command, "Go!" now points us
toward continents that its first hearers never knew
existed. And we ask, Who was to spread Christianity
through this tremendous area?
In our review of the development of these sixteen
centuries we have tried to suggest the answer. It was
not to be the hermit; not the monastic; not even
the mendicant preacher. But, whether Protestant or
Catholic, it was to he the missionary, commissioned and
supported by the administrator. The spread of Chris-
tianity was to follow from the carrying through of a
carefully organized, world-embracing campaign.
This was, in essence, a return to the apostolic ideal.
For the missionaries were those who would go any-
where and everywhere, at whatever risk, to spread the
gospel; and the administrators were those who, by a
careful direction of the enterprise, would make it pos-
sible for them to do so without being largely concerned
with securing financial support. It is this combination
of the missionary plus the administrator that makes
possible the great Christian advance on every conti-
nent to-day.
1. Were Christians of the third century justified in
believing that they had fulfilled the command to go
into allthe world?
2. Why did the hermit ideal of Christianity arise?
What other illustrations of this type of Christian can
you recall?
3. What were the great contributions of monasticism
to Christianity? What its shortcomings?
4. Give more complete accounts of the lives of Saint
Dominic and Saint Francis of Assisi.
5. How did the Jesuits differ from the Dominicans
and Franciscans?
6. Why is the administrator needed in the modem
missionary enterprise?
CHAPTER XVI
GENEVA—A CITY FOR GOD
It is the aim of the followers of Jesus not only to
spread his teachings throughout the extent of the world,
but throughout the life of the world as well. One form
of social organization is the city, and Christians look
toward the day when the vision of Saint Augustine of
a "City of God" shall be fulfilled in the cities of earth.
This is an ideal toward which men slowly advance.
How many them know that the same ideal took
of
possession of the imaginations of some as long ago as
at the birth of the Protestant Reformation, and that,
in the Swiss city of Geneva, there was carried through
an experiment in Christian city government that has
left its mark on history?
The City of Geneva

Switzerland is known the world over as a land of
freedom. Ithas been a freedom hard won, and only

maintained by constant vigilance. But since 1499
this group of German, French, and Italian "cantons"
has been independent.
Protestantism enters Switzerland. —
At about the
same time that Luther was stirring Germany a priest
from the monastery of Einsiedeln, near the Lake of
by
Zurich, began to preach views similar to those held
the German had not even heard
reformer, although he
of the Saxon. When, in the year Luther was sum-
moned before the Diet of Worms, this priest was made
the preacher in the cathedral at Zurich, he seized the
U7
opportunity to attack the abuses of Catholicism remorse-
lessly,and soon the whole country was stirred.
Zwingli, this Swiss reformer, must ever be regarded
as one of the most influential and attractive of the men
who led the sixteenth-century revolt from Rome. He
is regarded as the father of the Reformed churches of
to-day, and might have impressed the course of the
church even more powerfully than he did had not his
career been cut short when he was killed while acting
as chaplain to Protestant troops fighting against Catholic.
His active career covered only about a dozen years.
At his death Zwingli left Switzerland torn between
Catholic and Protestant. The older sections about the
Lake of Lucerne stood for the old church. The center
of Protestant influence came to be found in the part
of the country nearer to France. And the breach re-
mains to this day.
—
Geneva, a trade center. There has been a tendency
on the part of some, in telling what took place in Geneva,
to depict that city as a sinkhole of iniquity. Prob-
ably it did not differ greatly from other commercial
centers of its time. The city lay just over the border
from France and Italy, and astride the overland trade
route between the two. For years it had struggled
fiercely to maintain its freedom, especially from the
powerful Duke of Savoy, whose lands, located in the
north of Italy, extended almost up to its gates.
In 1530, by an alUance with the Protestant city of
Bern and the Catholic city of Freiburg, Geneva threw
off the power of the Duke of Savoy, exerted through
the Catholic bishop. Bern then tried to win Geneva
to the Protestant cause, and a French reformer, William
Farel, led in the attempt. Relations were broken
with Catholic Freiburg, and then the Savoyard bishop
GENEVA—A CITY FOR GOD 139
precipitated matters by attacking. The citizens, in

their swept out the last vestiges of Catholic
anger,
worship, and repulsed the troops from Savoy. Bern
then acknowledged the independence of Geneva, and
Farel, the Protestant leader, found himself facing the
task of drawing up a plan whereby the newly liberated
city should be governed. He felt himself unequal to
the task, and called to his aid a young Frenchman who,
by one of those circumstances that make up the romance
of history, happened to stop in his house one night
while travehng from Italy to Germany.
John Calvin
On the night that John Calvin stopped to pay his
respects to Farel while passing through Geneva, he was
but twenty-seven years of age. Yet he was already
one of the most widely known Protestant leaders of
Europe.
—
The making of a reformer. Calvin was born in a
family whose close connections with nobility and church
made life very comfortable for him. By the time he
was twelve years old, in accord with those abuses that
were so accepted a part of the religious life of his day,
he had been endowed with the incomes of enough posts
in the church to insure his freedom from want. He
graduated from the University of Paris, having majored
in philosophy, when he was nineteen. Two years later,
after studying at the universities of Orleans and Bourges,
he had graduated in law, making so brilUant a record
that, before obtaining his degree, he was invited to
lecture to his fellow students.
The spirit of the times, however, proved too strong
a lure, and when the death of his father left him a free
agent, young Calvin turned from the law to the study
of Greek and Hebrew in the newly established College
de France in Paris. The mark of this period is shown
in Calvin's first book, a scholarly study of one of Seneca's
treatises. If there was discussion of the questions
raised by Luther which the young scholar
in the circle in
moved (and there was), at least he then considered
more importance.
questions of culture of
The leader French Protestantism. Take now
of —
this background: a brilliant young man, with intimate
knowledge of the church, and as good a training in
philosophy, law, and the so-called humanities as the
time could give. Introduce a single element more:
the "sudden conversion" that Calvin testifies he expe-
rienced at the age of twenty-four. The result is the
man who is to lead French Protestantism, and influence
that of all other lands with his teaching.
It was perilous business to be a reformer in Europe,
and for a long time young Calvin was shifting about
from country to country, seeking a place where he might
study and write in peace. In the midst of this exile,
to defend his fellow French Protestants from the charges
leveled against them by the French king, he wrote the
first form of his system of Christian doctrine. It was
the clearest exposition of Protestant thought that had
appeared, and made its author famous overnight. It
rejected the authority of church and Pope, accepted
the authority of the Bible, and based all righteousness
upon the will of God. This will of God was represented
as all-powerful. If men were saved, it was because
God willed it, not because of their own acts or will.
If they were lost, it was for the same reason. So Calvin
sponsored a hard-and-fast doctrine of human predestina-
tion that has remained a subject for debate and division
within Protestantism to this day.
—
GENEVA— A CITY FOR GOD 141
Calvin in Geneva
It was while hastening from one refuge in Italy to

another in Germany that Calvin stopped overnight in
Geneva. "Stay to build here a city for God," pleaded
Farel. Active service of that sort held no appeal to the
frail scholar. "I must go on in the morning," he in-
sisted. "Put forward your studies as a pretext if you
will," thundered the passionate Farel, "but if you
refuse this work, the curse of God will rest upon you."
Calvin was terror-stricken and remained.
—
Exiled and recalled. It was no easy task to which
Farel and Calvin thus committed themselves. The
zealous Farel had already set laws governing the be-
havior of individuals that irked the pleasure-loving
citizens Geneva.
of At Calvin's advice, these laws
were made even more strict. Plain dress was required,
—
and obnoxious sports which included practically all
forbidden. Soon the people were in rebellion. When
Calvin and Farel presented one creed, another was
adopted. When they brought forward methods by
which such as they deemed unworthy should be de-
barred from the Lord's Supper, the Council of Two
Hundred voted that the sacrament should be denied
none. And when they refused compliance, they were
banished.
Calvin found in this banishment, which he spent as
pastor of a church in Strassburg, the happiest period
of his life. But if Calvin enjoyed this period, Geneva
did not. had secured his
Finally, after the party that
banishment had been overthrown, Calvin was persuaded
to return, practically on his own terms. Farel refused
to do likewise, with the result that Calvin was left in
control of the city.
A theocratic government. The government that—
Calvin now set up was based on a separation between
church and state, with the church having the power
to regulate the life of its members to the smallest degree,
and the state bound to enforce the penalties set by the
church. The rule of the church was democratic, being
in the hands of elders elected from the laity, with a
minority of preachers.
All manner of sin was sternly repressed within the
city,together with amusements that would to-day be
regarded as entirely innocent. The preachers were held
at a high level by frequent meetings for self-examina-
tion and mutual criticism. Popular education was
encouraged, and so brilliantly was the Protestant posi-
tion expounded that Geneva became a center for non-
Catholic theological training to which men came from
all over western Europe.
Life under the reformers.— It must not be thought
that there was not opposition to this program of Calvin's.
There was. Sometimes this took the form of attacking
Calvin's religious teaching, and such attacks were
rigorously repressed. Calvin's position was that of a
religious teacher, and if his authority in that field were
once overthrown, his authority in all other was fields
bound to follow. To
was due the awful penalty,
this
death by fire, visited upon an eccentric Spaniard,
Servetus, who published an attack upon the doctrine of
the Trinity. That act remains as a blot upon Calvin's
record, although it must be remembered that it was
not so regarded in his day.
Sometimes Calvin's rule was attacked by the old
families of Geneva because he was attracting so many
outsiders to join with him in governing the city. Geneva,
that set itself before the world as a city in which the
will of God held sway, naturally attracted men of

reforming tendencies who often became leaders.
And sometimes there was trouble from those who,
in a city of twenty thousand inhabitants, would be
sure to oppose any strict rule at all.
But, after years of struggle, the position of Calvin
became secure. He never accepted civil ofi5ce, remain-
ing always a simple minister among the many in the
city. His power was that of character. He saw the
laws he desired enacted and obeyed. He saw the schools
he coveted founded and filled. He saw the cleanest
and, in some ways, most influential city in Europe,
grow. And at last, twenty-three years after his return
from exile, after a life of fifty-five years, most of them
lived in sickness and bodily weakness, he died, mourned
as few men have been.
What Geneva Accomplished

It is hard to separate the contribution of Geneva,
the city of the reformers, from that of Calvin, the
great reformer.
The —
influence of Calvin. Of Calvin it has been
said, ''Thanks to his Institutes, his pattern of church
government in Geneva, his academy, his commentaries,
and his constant correspondence, he molded the thought
and inspired the ideals of the Protestantism of France,
the Netherlands, Scotland, and the English Puritans.
His influence penetrated Poland and Hungary, and before
his death Calvinism was taking root in southwestern
Germany. Men thought his thoughts after him. His
was the only system that the Reformation produced
that could organize itself powerfully in the face of
governmental hostility, as in France and England.
It trained strong men, confident in their election to be
fellow workers with God in the accomplishment of his
will,courageous to do battle, insistent on character,
and confident that God has given in the Scriptures
the guide of all right human conduct and proper
worship."^
The influence of Geneva. But Calvin might not —
have accomplished all this had he not achieved a city
in which his ideas had fair play. "Geneva became
to the Romanic nations what Wittenberg was to the
Germans. Geneva was the refuge for the persecuted
. . .
and the stronghold from which missionaries went forth

to continue the battle. From its printing presses Bibles
and numerous other publications in the French tongue
were scattered abroad."' And in the midst of such an
atmosphere men like John Knox could dream that even
a country might be ruled in accord with the will of God,
and go back to the transformation of Scotland. It is
easy to point out shortcomings in the life of Geneva
under the sixteenth-century reformers. When the
dream of the city ruled by God is truly fulfilled, life
within be a lovelier thing than they imagined.

it will
But the dream they had, and to it they gave expres-
sion. So Geneva remains a landmark in Christian
history.
1. How did the ideal of Saint Augustine for a "City

of God" differ from that of John Calvin?
2. Show how the various forms of preparation fitted
John Calvin for different portions of his career.
3. What can you discover concerning the relations
of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin?
' Williston Walker, op. cit., p. 400.
»G. P. Fisher, History 0/ the Christian Church, Charles Scribner's Sons, pub-
lishers, p. 338. ,
4. What part did religious education play in the work

that Calvin did in Geneva?
5. Why was there opposition to the rule of Calvin?
6. Will it ever be possible to rule a city as a part of
the Kingdom of God? How will such a government
differ from that of Calvin in Geneva? How will it be
similar?
CHAPTER XVII
THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND AND
SCOTLAND
In the middle of the fourteenth century England

was stirred by the teaching of an Oxford scholar, John
Wiclif, who attacked the claims of the papacy to tem-
poral power, and even asserted that in religious matters
the word of the Pope had no validity unless it was in
accord with the Scripture. To make that Scripture
better known, Wiclif translated it, and the translations
were scattered throughout England.
Naturally, the church took issue with Wiclif. Al-
though he was protected during his life by English
nobles who approved his denunciation of the ruler in
far-off Rome, after his death the church condemned
him, his body was disinterred and burned, and the ashes
scattered on the water of the little stream that ran
through the town where he had been buried.
But it was impossible to reduce all those versions
of the Bible in the common tongue to ashes. They
went on doing their work in scores of homes. Finally,
a hundred and twenty-five years after Wiclif died,
there came to the throne of England a king who was
to separate that country from all allegiance to Rome.
A Political Reformation
The great difference between the revolt of northern
Germany from the power of the Pope and the revolt
of England was that the former was, at bottom, a
146
THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 147
religious, and the latter was a political movement.

To be sure, there were religious elements aplenty in
the English Reformation, just as there were political
elements in the German. But the primary effect de-
sired by most Englishmen was political —freedom from
a foreign power.
The "Defender of the Faith."—When Henry VIII
was crowned, in 1509, he was greeted with acclamation
by his own subjects, and by the leaders of culture in
every part of Europe. He had shown such an interest
in the new movements of learning that such men as
Erasmus flocked to his realm.
But as the reign of Henry VIII advanced he began
to show a determination to have his own way, be the
difficulties of law or custom what they might. When
Luther first began to attract the notice of Europe the
English king sought to pulverize his arguments with
a discourse that drew from the Pope, in gratitude, the
title of "Defender of the Faith." But when, a few years
later, the King wanted to do something that the Pope
would not sanction, Henry did not hesitate to defy
the Pope, free the church in his realm from papal author-
ity, and constitute himself "supreme head of the church"
in England, despite the excommunication that the
Pope launched against him.
The question on which the King and Pope came to
the parting of the ways concerned Henry's marriage
to Catherine of Aragon. Catherine had been the wife,
nominally, of Henry's brother. At the brother's death
the Spanish princess had been betrothed to the younger
brother. As such a marriage of a widow to her de-
ceased husband's brother was against the law, it was
necessary to secure a special dispensation from the
Pope before it could be consummated.
After several years it became apparent that Henry
could hope for no male heir while Catherine remained
his wife. The absence of such an heir would, he feared,
bring about a return to the civil war that had preceded
his reign. Besides, he had discovered in the English
court a young woman who attracted him. Alleging a
he asked the Pope to rule that the pre-
religious scruple,
ceding Pope had had no power to make it possible for
him to marry his brother's wife. When the Pope hes-
itated too long, Henry declared himself the head of
the church in England, secured the acceptance of that
claim by the majority of English priests, and had the
marriage annulled.
The Reformation in England during the reign of
Henry VIII never went much further than that. Free-
dom from the authority of an Italian or Frenchman in
Rome was what the English, just feeling the stirrings
of an assertive nationalism, wanted, and the King had
ample support for his action. Moreover, when he
closed the monasteries (oftenon trumped-up charges)
and divided huge revenues with favored families,
their
he gained in support. But beyond that neither the
King nor the majority of his subjects cared to go. Wor-
ship within the church was the same after the King had
been substituted for the pontiff as head. And although
it was impossible to keep England entirely free from
the influence of the ideas that were so powerful in

Germany, France, Switzerland, and Holland, still the
seemed to be con-
principal expression of those ideas
fined to the enlarged reading of the Bible in English
among the common people.
England's first Protestant king.—When Henry
VIII died and a boy nine years of age, Edward VI,
came to the throne, England had its first experience
with a truly Protestant monarch. For, whether the

credit be that of the boy king or his counselors, the
six years of his reign saw a real Protestantism estab-
lished. Services in Latin ceased. The Prayer Book
was introduced, and was distinctly Protestant in its
theological positions. The ceHbacy of the clergy was

no longer enforced. The fasts of the Roman Catholic
Church were neglected. Ornate costumes for priests
were abandoned. And the influence of the Protestant
leaders on the continent was to be felt throughout the
country.
TheCatholic reaction.— Six years was a short time
in which to introduce such sweeping changes. Before
Edward's brief reign closed there were signs of trouble.
With the coming to the throne of his half-sister, Mary,
the Catholic reaction came with full force. Mary was
the daughter of that Catherine of Aragon, who had
been the innocent cause of the break between Henry
VIII and the Pope. She had been reared as a strict
Catholic, and her own position depended upon a repudi-
ation of the annulment of her mother's marriage. Policy
and personal inclination therefore combined to make
her remorseless in her opposition to Protestanism.
Mary was on the throne but five years, yet, during
that time, she sent three hundred Protestants to their
deaths, reestablished the rule of the Pope in the affairs
of the church, and brought back almost a complete
restoration of Catholic worship, although she was
unable to return to the church the wealth of the monas-
teries that her father had seized.
What theological argument might never have done,
—
those five years of Queen Mary "Bloody Mary," as
—
she is known to history accomplished. For the reestab-
lishment of Catholicism in such a manner was its ruin.
Men became convinced that there was something
fundamentally wrong with a church that employed
such means of imposing its will. "Play the man, Master
Ridley," cried Bishop Latimer as the two were bound
to the stake. "We shall this day light up such a candle,
by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be
put out." It was a true prophecy. Catholic rule has
been impossible in England since the day Mary died.
Elizabeth establishes the English Church. —
So, at the mid-point of the sixteenth century, there
began, under Elizabeth, another daughter of Henry
VIII, one of England's greatest reigns. Elizabeth was
one of the great women of history. She had few warm
religious beliefs, but she was a remarkable politician
and she had the ability to secure the services of advisers
of the first rank.
Elizabeth, seeking to secure the safety of her realm,
feeling the reaction from the merciless policy of Mary,
and at odds with Catholic Spain, gradually but inevitably
swung toward Protestantism. Once more she declared
the freedom of the church in her kingdom from the
authority of the Pope. Once more the services were
conducted in English, and a Book of Common Prayer
adopted. Once more the Protestant theological posi-
tions were approved in the Articles of Religion of the
English Church. And although attempts were made
to check the movement toward Protestantism that the
Queen was so strongly from the day when
leading,
the English ships and the elements combined to defeat
the Spanish Armada the future of England as a Protes-
tant land was fixed.
Established Church and Nonconformist

In every reform there are two elements. One seeks
to change as little as possible and still secure the ends

in view. The In the trans-
other seeks radical change.
formation in England from a Catholic to a Protestant
country, Henry VIII and Elizabeth, together with a
majority of the people, belonged to the first class.
The Anglican Church. —
Thus it was that the church
recognized by those monarchs, and by them construed
to include every loyal subject of the throne, was changed
very little in its forms from the Church of Rome. To
be sure, the services were conducted in English, and
during the reign of Edward VI there were extensive
alterations in worship introduced. But under Elizabeth
these alterations were held to a minimum. The old
tradition of an unbroken succession of ordinations for
bishops, stretching back to the time of the apostles,
was guarded by having the archbishop the Queen selected
consecrated by bishops who had themselves been con-
secrated under the Church of Rome during the reign
of Henry VIII.
The nonconformist churches. —At the same time,
Mary had brought back to England
however, the death of
great numbers of men who, during exile, had been
strongly impressed by the leaders of Continental Protes-
tantism, especially by Calvin. These men could not
be satisfied by the traces of Catholicism they found
remaining in the English Church, and demanded a
further purification. For this reason they came to be
known as Puritans, and as such they were to exercise a
profound influence on history.
There were two groups of Puritans. One preferred to
remain within the Church of England and seek to change
it until it resembled the church that Calvin held up as a
model. The other believed that to be too long and

difficult a course, and urged complete separation. In
—
that day, when adherence to the church of which the
sovereign was the head was a legal test of loyalty, such
separation brought persecution. For that reason, men
who were unwilling to conform to the laws of worship as
established by the government were constantly being
forced to flee to Holland or some other nearby country.
And out of these, in the swift passage of the years, came
the great nonconformist denominations.
We have not room here to tell in detail of the origin
of these denominations. The Puritans who believed in a
church governed by elders rather than by bishops
Calvin's idea —became known as Presbyterians, after the
Greek name for an elder. Those who beHeved in the
right of each congregation to govern its and own Ufe
select its own became known as Congrega-
minister
tionalists. Those who placed emphasis upon a particular
mode of baptism and rejected the infant baptism prac-
ticed by the established church became known as
Baptists. And finally, during the intense period of the
English civil war, when
the Puritans had estabHshed their
ascendancy (particularly the nonconformist Puritans),
there developed that Society of Friends, commonly
known as the Quakers.
The Preacher Who Vanquished a Queen

The story of the Reformation in Scotland is largely
the story of the struggle between Mary Stuart, Queen of
Scots,and John Knox, minister of the gospel.
—
John Knox. History knows few more rugged or
compelling figures than that of John Knox. Born in
obscurity, he early aligned himself with the first stirrings
of Protestantism, that were so ruthlessly repressedby the

reigning Stuart family and the Catholic hierarchy in
Scotland. Captured by French troops, Knox spent
nineteen months as a galley slave. Released, he obtained

prominence as a Protestant minister in the England of
Edward VI. Compelled to fly at the accession of Mary,
he became, in Geneva, one of the greatest of the disciples
of John Calvin. A short stay in Scotland, preaching
Protestant doctrines, was followed by another sojourn in
Geneva. Finally, a year after Elizabeth was crowned,
Knox was ready for the great career that was to make
him the uncrowned king of his native land.
—
Mary, Queen of Scots. Four years before John
Knox went to the French galleys a baby girl became
Queen of Scotland. She lived most of her girlhood in
France. In the year that Elizabeth became a queen, this
cousin of hers married the heir to the French throne.
In the next year her husband became King of France, and
the fortunes of Scotland and France were united. In the
next year this husband died, and in the next year the
young widow returned to her kingdom to play out her
part in history as Mary, Queen of Scots.
—
The struggle for Scotland. It was an action of
important Scottish nobles, inspired by a fear that their
country was becoming nothing but a province of France,
that encouraged Knox to return to Scotland. He found
multitudes of the common people and many of the
nobility eager to respond to his message. In fact, the
ruthless way in which in some places the last vestige of
the old Catholic worship was destroyed went beyond any-
thing Knox himself desired.
For a time Knox and his supporters had to fight for
their beliefs, but opportune help from England defeated
the French troops that the Stuarts called to their aid, and
the Scottish Parliament adopted a Calvinistic faith and
a Presbyterian form of church organization for the coun-
try. When Mary returned to her throne she found Knox
in the full tide of enforcing for the nation a regime as
strict as Calvin had, in Geneva, enforced for the city.
Mary went about her effort to undo the work that
Knox had done in a careful fashion. Her principal weapon
was her undeniable charm, and upon all but John Knox
she was able to use that weapon with great effect. She
made no secret of her own personal attachment to
CathoHcism, but she sought to convince the leaders of
Scotland that she was to be trusted with power. Knox
never trusted her. She phed her arts of blandishment by
the hour, and the next Sunday the pulpit of Saint GUes
would echo with further denunciations of her by the
stern Scotch preacher.
Finally Mary threw away her own cause. The story
of her love affairs is too long, too muddled, too sordid to
be retold here. At the last she was forced to turn over
the throne to her infant son (afterward to be King of
England as well as Scotland) and throw herself upon the
mercy of Elizabeth. Nineteen years after she fled from
Scotland she was executed as a conspirator against the
life of the queen who had given her refuge.
Four years after Mary fled Knox died, "having in-

fluenced not merely the religion but the character of the
nation more than any other man in Scottish history."
^
He left a church that has been one of the bulwarks of

Protestantism in all the succeeding centuries.
1. Give a detailed account of the life and work of

Wiclif.
2. What can you tell about Tyndale; Wolsey; Cranmer;
Thomas Cromwell?
Williston Walker, op. cil., p. 42a.
3. Why were the reformers so anxious to have the

Bible in the vernacular?
4. Read the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion of the
Church of England. Which ones would have been
unacceptable to the Roman Catholic Church?
5. Were there ever persecutions of Catholics under
Protestant monarchs in the period under study? To
what extent? Can such persecutions be justified?
CHAPTER XVIII
EARLY MISSIONARIES IN THE AMERICAS

While England and Scotland, and other European
countries,were settling their relations v/ith the papacy,
the spread of Christianity was continuing. We have
seen (see Chapter XIV) how Francis Xavier and his
comrades carried the gospel to the oldest civilizations.
Now we find others equally eager bearing the same mes-
sage to a New World.
The Legacy of the Pope

In the same year that Columbus landed on San
Salvador a member of the infamous Borgia family of
Italy became Pope. He is known to history as Alexander
VI, and with most of his acts we have no concern.
But this Pope was as excited by the prospect of new
lands as were Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, or John
of Portugal. Most of the first discoveries were made by
subjects of these two monarchies. The rulers, as good
Catholics, were anxious that the territories thus added
to their crowns should recognize the "true faith." More-
over, they desired such legalizing of their title to these
new lands as was possible.
Alexander VI, acting upon the theory of the power of
the Pope to rule in all matters, temporal as well as
spiritual, proposed to legalize the claims of Portugal and
Spain in return for the assurance that Catholicism should
have complete control in the religious affairs of the
colonies. Accordingly, "of his mere liberality," as one
156
MISSIONARIES IN THE AMERICAS 157
writer putsit, he divided all the lands to be discovered
between the two nations. Spain was to have practically

all in the New World and Portugal the rest.
Generous Pope Alexander!
Catholic Missions in Latin-America

In an advantage of the opportunities
effort to take full
offered by the and
discoveries, Dominicans, Franciscans,
Jesuits pressed hard on the heels of Spanish and Por-
tuguese conquerors. The legacy of Alexander VI thus
became a missionary work among the natives of the New
World as devoted as that carried on in India, China, or
Japan.
The apostle of the West Indies. —The most attrac-
tive figure that looms out of these attempts to convert
the aborigines of New Spain was Bartholomew de Las
Casas. Son of a Spaniard who had accompanied Colum-
bus on his first voyage, the young missionary was himself
in the West Indies ten years after that memorable dis-
covery. the first man to be ordained in the New
He was
World, and few have proved more worthy of their
calling.
Las Casas found the natives treated as slaves by the
Spaniards. Some had even been shipped to Spain in that
condition, where they had been released by the humane
Queen Isabella. Driven to work in the mines and pearl-
fisheries, under horrible conditions, the unfortunate West
Indians suffered barbarously and died in great numbers.
To fight such evils Las Casas devoted his whole life.
With flaming eloquence he enlisted support in Spain, and
with unswerving devotion he lightened the lot of the
native laborers in the West Indies. He was hated,
threatened, balked in every possible way by most of the
other Spaniards in the islands. Yet he drove doggedly
;

ahead, an early apostle of social justice as a necessary
ground for religious blessing.
"He crossed the ocean twelve times; he traversed
every thenknown region of America and the islands; he
made repeated journeys from Spain to Flanders and
Germany, to see the Emperor on the affairs of his mission
his hterary labors would have been remarkable even in a
scholar who had no calling outside the halls of his college
^
or the quiet of his private study."
Before his career closed. Las Casas had the joy of
seeing most of the natives of the West Indies converted
to an at least nominal form of Catholicism. But one act
remains to stain the record of a hfe of singular unselfish-
ness. In his zeal to protect his West Indian converts
from the strain of work which they could not survive,
Las Casas did not oppose the importation into the New
World of slave labor from Africa. At the time the great
missionary beheved Negroes able to undergo such toil
without hurt, but later, when the consequences of the
slave trade became clear, Las Casas bitterly repented.
To secure relief for one group of men he had permitted
a terrible injustice to be done another. It was too high
a price.
In the footsteps of Cortez. When Cortez, the fa-—
mous Spanish conqueror, marched to the overthrow of
the ancient Aztec kingdom in Mexico, he bore with him
instructions from Queen Isabella, again recalling the
legacy of Alexander VI. "Speaking of the grant . . .
as an endeavor 'to induce and bring the people thereof,

by conversion, to the holy CathoHc faith,' and to send to
these islands and continents prelates, clergymen, and
gifted persons who fear God and who will instruct the
residents in good doctrine and customs; then, with a
'Quoted by Fisher, op. cit., p. 450, 451.
MISSIONARIES IN THE AMERICAS 159
woman's heart, she entreats that they be well treated

^
and receive no injury in their persons."
Cortez was glad to open the way for the missionary
efforts of the priests who accompanied his expedition, and
who came into Mexico in greater numbers after he had
obtained control of the country. The priests, most of
whom were Franciscans, threw themselves into their
work with such enthusiasm that, within a generation, a
form of Catholicism had been estabhshed in aU parts of
the country.
Not much can be said for the ethical content of the
rehgion thus estabhshed. The Catholic missionaries
found it too easy to "convert" the natives from the
worship that had flourished under the Aztecs to the new
order by simply changing the names of the old feasts and
observances. There was too little attempt to give the
converts any true conception of either the spirit or doc-
trine of real Christianity. And while, in the monasteries
soon established, priests were trained who were able to
take the Catholic message up through what is now our
Spanish Southwest into California, and it is even de-
clared that missionaries were sent from Mexico to the
Phihppines, the common people remained wedded to
such degraded forms that the country is still "mission
territory."
An attempt at Christian communism.— In the
meantime the Spanish and Portuguese adventurers were
pressing down into South America, giving that continent
it wiU probably always retain.
the distinctive Latin flavor
Everywhere they went they took Catholicism with them,
although frequently in a form little better than that
planted in Mexico.
No attempt of that period is of greater interest than
' Hodgkins, Via Christi, p. 173.
i6o THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
that made in certain parts of Paraguay by the Jesuits.
In the early part of the seventeenth century the Catholic
missionaries had become convinced that they would
never be able to secure the proper fruit of their evangel-
izing efforts until they could, in some manner, separate
their work from the influence of the soldiers, slavers, and
traders who made up the rest of the Spanish population.
Accordingly, the KLing of Spain was induced to give the
Jesuits a portion of Paraguay which was to be outside
the jurisdiction of the and into which
civil authorities,
no Spaniards save the come.
priests could
In this protected area the Jesuits gathered colonies of
their converts, to which were given the name of reduc-
tions. Here the native Christians stood on a level. There
was no private property, no private control of time or
energy. The priest was in complete control, and governed
each community as a paternal despot. There were no
drones. All were taught to work at tasks that con-
tributed directly to the good of the common body. The
rudiments of an education were given each member of
the community.
To a believer in individual initiative such a system
might seem intolerable. But, when compared with the
condition of the natives in other parts of the Spanish
dominions, these inhabitants of the reductions appeared
so well off that the system of priest-controlled com-
munities became famous. This was felt to be an almost
perfect form of Christian missions. It disappeared, how-
ever, when the Jesuits were disbanded in the eighteenth
century.
Among the North American Indians

The record of missionary enterprises among the Indians
MISSIONARIES IN THE AMERICAS i6i
of the North American continent is as heroic as any

page in Catholic history.
New France as a missionary base. While mission- —
aries penetrated north to some extent from the Spanish
colonies, the most famous work for the natives of North
America was that carried on from the French settlements
in Quebec, Montreal, and along the Saint Lawrence.
Three great Indian tribes challenged the Franciscans
who moved to their conversion from the Canadian base.
These were the Algonquins, the Hurons, and the Iroquois.
The two latter were the most powerful native tribes of
that period.
The story of the Catholic missions among these Indians
is much like the story of all the dealings of red man and
white. The Indians were constantly pressed westward,
and the more intimate their contact with the missionaries
the more disastrous seemed the results.
The Algonquins were the first reached to any large
extent, only to be wiped out by disease and warfare.
Then the Hurons, after a long resistance, began to accept
baptism, and they too were extinguished. Finally the
Iroquois, moved by the heroism of the Jesuits who had
succeeded the Franciscans in the task, asked for mis-
sionaries. But the efforts of the priests among them
never came to much.
Probably the single feature of this Catholic effort to
spread Christianity that is most remembered is the trip
that Father Marquette made when he accom-
in 1673,
panied Joliet on his famous voyage down the Mississippi.
The presence of this priest on this adventure of discovery
serves to show how close upon the feet of the first ex-
plorers pressed the evangelists.
Reaching the Indians in New England. — In the
previous chapter we spoke of the rise of the Puritans in
England, and of the dissatisfaction of some of them with
the state of rehgion at that time within the established
church. Eventually this moved groups of varying size to
come to the New World, where, in New England, they
founded those colonies that were to become a Puritan
center for all the western world.
The New England pioneers were primarily interested
own political and religious welfare, but they were
in their
sincere enough Christians to desire that the blessings of
the gospel be shared with the Indians they found inhabit-
ing the parts where they settled. To be sure, it has been
possible for historians to point out that Indian wars
preceded the Indian missions, but it was only a short
time until men were preaching to the natives.
An early leader among these Protestant missionaries
was John Eliot, a graduate of Cambridge University, who
abandoned his position as minister to one of the colonies
to give his whole strength to work among the Indians.
Like many another missionary pioneer, his best work was
the translation of the Bible into the Indian tongue.
Roger Williams, also a graduate of Cambridge, labored
mightily in the same field, and contributed to the knowl-
edge of the Indian language.

1. What lands were included within the grant of
Alexander VI to the kings of Spain and Portugal?
2. Give a more detailed description of the life and work
of Las Casas.
3. What can you discover about the religion of the
Aztecs?
4. Woiild you recommend the policy followed in the
reductions as a good one to be used in missionary work?
Give reasons for or against.
MISSIONARIES IN THE AMERICAS i6 J
5. Whydid the coming of the white man have a harm-

upon the Indians of North America?
ful effect
6. Would you consider missionary efforts among the
American Indians as successful or otherwise?
CHAPTER XIX
PROTESTANTISM FACES THE WIDER WORLD
As we have traced the exploits of Francis Xavier in the

Orient, of Las Casas in the West Indies, of the Jesuits
in Paraguay and among the Hurons and Iroquois, it has
become apparent that, for the centuries immediately
following the Reformation, the work of spreading Chris-
tianity was left largely in the hands of the CathoUc
Church.
To be sure, there were some attempts to reach the
North American Indians by the Protestants who came
to the New World, and in Brazil the French Huguenot
leader. Admiral Coligny, tried to plant a colony that, had
it not been betrayed, might have become a missionary
center. But these were on so small a scale, and enlisted

the support of so small a part of Protestantism, that it is
almost true to say that for three centuries after its
founding Protestantism had no world vision or world
message.
The Early Protestant Attitude Toward the

Non-Christian World
Until the Puritans sought freedom of worship on the
shores of New England, Protestantism was confined to a
relatively small portion of the world's surface.
The size of the non-Christian world. — Consider the
world as it would have appeared on a religious map of the
sixteenth or seventeenth century. All the countries of
Europe, except a portion of the arctic regions, were
164
PROTESTANTISM FACES WORLD 165
nominally Christian. But in the far North the Christian

colony that had been planted in Greenland in the year
1000 had disappeared. Asia Minor, Palestine, North
Africa, where had once been flourishing churches, were
in the hands of Islam. The Nestorian missions in India
and China had disappeared, and the later Catholic mis-
sions in the Far East were tending rapidly toward eclipse.
The aborigines of the two great newly discovered conti-
nents had scarcely been touched. Africa was the un-
known continent, and would so remain for centuries.
Most of the islands of the sea, including Australasia, had
yet to be discovered. It was an enormous world of need
and opportunity that lay in waiting.
—
"Casting pearls before swine." It seems incredible
that "the Reformers of the sixteenth century, in Germany
and Switzerland, France and Sweden, Scotland and
England, lived right through the greatest age of discovery
the world has ever yet seen, but in vain so far as foreign
missions are concerned."^ Yet that is precisely what
happened.
Erasmus had a sense of the world responsibility of the
church, but Luther and the other leaders who broke clear
away from Rome did not. An attitude that it took
centuries to dispel was expressed by a
Lutheran later
leader: "With respect to the heathen who are to be con-
verted, they must not be barbarians who have hardly
aught of humanity but the outward form, such as Green-
landers, Lapps, Samoyedes, cannibals; they must not be
fierce and tyrannical, allowing no strangers to live and
associate with them, like the remote Tartars beyond the
Caspian Sea, or whole nations in the northern regions of
America. In short, they must not be headstrong blas-
phemers, persecutors, despisers of the Christian religion.
1 George Smith, Short History of Christian Missions, p. 112.

The holy things of God are not to be cast before such
dogs and swine!" And it was easy for one who could
think of men in non-Christian lands as "dogs and swine"
to add the question that is sometimes still heard, "Have
we not Jews and heathen among ourselves?"^
With such an attitude as this, it is no wonder that the
powerful Protestant bodies, such as the Lutherans in
Germany, the Presbyterians in Scotland, and the Church
of England, did almost nothing to expand the reign of
Christ beyond their own frontiers.
Why Protestantism was provincial.Studying that —
time in the perspective supplied by these years, we can
see some of the causes that helped to make those early
Protestants so provincial in their thinking.
For one thing, it took them long years of struggle, lead-
ing in many
cases to bloody warfare, so to establish their
position that they could be assured of permanency.
Safety seemed to demand that they center their atten-
tions upon their own situation.
Again, the Protestants soon fell into vigorous disputes
among themselves, as well as with the Catholics, as to
the truth of their various doctrines. So much strength
was consumed in such arguments that Uttle was left to
devote to other interests.
Finally, there was a general acceptance of a belief that
the end of all earthly things was at hand. "Another
hundred years and all will be over," said Luther. Sen-
tences in the Bible were twisted to teach that, now that
the "pure gospel" of Protestantism had been proclauned,
Christ would return. And
view of the impending end
in
it was felt scarcely worth the while to spend energyon
efforts in other lands that would never have time to come
to much fruition.
'Quoted by Hodgkins, op. cil., pp. 162, 163-

The First Stirrings of Protestant Interest
But and there, men with largeness

there were, here
enough and imagination to see the world task
of heart
that lay before the church, and call men to it.
Early voices. —The first voices that spoke out were
Dutchmen, who had been awakened to an interest in the
non- Christian world as their nation drove the Portuguese
out of possession of the Malay Archipelago, South India,
and Ceylon. Their inspirer was Hugo Grotius, "the
father of international law." Just because the great
Dutch jurist thought internationally he inspired a few
men to live in the same way, as missionaries in the East.
In the middle of the seventeenth century a German
nobleman, Baron von Welz, startled Lutheranism with a
pamphlet, Invitation for a Society of Jesus to Promote
Christianity and the Conversion of Heathendom, in which
were pressed home such questions as these: Is it right to
keep the gospel to ourselves? Is it right that students of
theology should be confined to home parishes? Is it right
for Christians to spend so much on clothing, eating,
drinking, and to take no thought to spread the gospel?
Baron von Welz pleaded for the establishment of mis-
sionary training courses in connection with German
universities, and when the church turned a deaf ear to
his challenge he renounced his title, went out to Dutch
Guiana, and there became the first missionary martyr of
the church that had proved two centuries behind him
in thought.
The final appeal came not from a minister or a philan-
thropist but from the great scientist, von Leibnitz, who,
stirred by the success of the Jesuit teachers in China,
urged Protestantism to duplicate that achievement by
sending missionaries of outstanding mental ability to
Peking by way of Russia. In fact, von Leibnitz carried
the project to the point of inserting it in the statutes of
the Berlin Academy of Sciences, which he founded in the
year of the eighteenth century.
first
—
The first regular mission. It required a revival
within Lutheranism, accompanied by the favor of a king,
to send the first regularly organized Protestant mission
to itsmonumental work in India.
During the closing years of the seventeenth century,
the religious life of Protestant Germany was lifted from
barren theological discussion to warm spiritual fervor by
the activities of a group who are known to history as the
Pietists. One of the leaders of this movement became
chaplain to the King of Denmark, and aroused that
monarch's concern for the conversion of the natives in
the territory held by the Danish East India Company.
So it was that, in 1706, in Tranquebar, a city on the coast
of India one hundred and fifty miles south of Madras,
two young graduates of the University of Copenhagen
began their work.
As we have seen in other missionary enterprises, the
first concern of these pioneers was to translate the Bible
into Tamil, the native language. Other Christian

literature was prepared, and recruits came to reenforce.
Despite opposition on the part of the European officials,
who did not want to see the natives brought to a position
where they might assert their own rights, the mission
prospered. Finally its success was assured by the addition
of Christian Frederic Schwartz, who lived until within
two years opening of the nineteenth century, five
of the
years after William Carey had started the first English
Protestant work in the same land.
By all tests Schwartz is one of the great figures of
Protestant missions. A graduate of the University of

Halle, he evidenced such a linguistic ability that, within

a year after his arrival in Tranquebar, he was preaching
to multitudes. From the first he proved able to win the
confidence of the native princes, and frequently mediated
between them and the European officials when mutual
suspicion seemed to have closed every other avenue of
preserving the peace. "Send me the Christian," said a
rajah when about to negotiate with the English. "He
will not deceive me." He won the affection of the masses
by storing rice in anticipation of a three years' famine,
and then distributing it to those in need. He proved his
farsightedness by establishing a system of vernacular
schools, which British and native ofiicials were glad to
support. When he died the Rajah of Tanjore, the British
East India Company, and the foreign community erected
monuments to his memory, but the true monument was
the church that he left flourishing in that part of
India.
The work of the Quakers. —
Previously (see Chap-
ter XVII) we have noted the formation of the Society
of Friends in England by George Fox. The intense
humanitarian interest of the Quakers —exhibited through
all the years down to the present, when they
are at work
feeding the hungry in Central Europe and Russia— fired
them with a resolve to uplift the degraded, especially
Negro slaves.
It was this spirit that moved Fox to write, "All
Friends everywhere, that have Indians or blacks, you
are to preach the gospel to them and other servants, if
you be true Christians, for the gospel of salvation was to
be preached to every creature under heaven." And this
spirit sent some Quaker enthusiasts to preach in Jeru-
salem, Alexandria, and Constantinople, and inspired the
more practical Christian example shown by William Penn
and his associates in their dealings with the Indians in
Pennsylvania.
The Church of the Brethren

From long years of persecution in Bohemia, there came
to settle in Saxony in the early years of the eighteenth
century, a group of Protestants who knew themselves
as the United Brethren, but who are generally called the
Moravians, because of the province from which they came.
—
Count von Zinzendorf. It was at Herrnhut, on the
estates ofCount von Zinzendorf, that these wanderers
found a home. Here, under the control of the count,
they founded a religious community that has exerted an
influence throughout the world out of all relation to its
size.
Count von Zinzendorf was an attractive figure. At

four years of age he is have made this covenant:
said to
"Be thou mine, dear Saviour, and I will be thine." Well
educated, he refused to live the sort of life that was usual
among the German nobility of his day, and brought
down upon himself such hostility for his piety that he
was banished from court. Probably he was well content
to take up the quiet life of a rehgious enthusiast, spurred
by his motto: "I have one passion, and that is He, He
alone!"
Moravian missions. —Zinzendorf had a great mis-
Under
sionary outlook. his leadership the church of the
United Brethren sent its members to what were con-
sidered the neediest spots on earth. The count himself
visited England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia,
Switzerland, the West Indies, and America, and his repre-
sentatives reached South America, South Africa, interior
Africa, Greenland, and many of the Indian tribes of
North America.
Some have pointed out that these Moravian missions

never reached large dimensions in the mass; that they
were mainly carried on by men with little education that ;
they were ''directed to races and tribes too obscure,

savage, or transient to influence the great centers and
citadels of heathendom, the great non-Christian and
anti-Christian systems and civilizations." But still we
must acknowledge the devotion of a church that has
been able to place one missionary in the field for every
fifty-eight members at the home base. No other body,
Protestant or Catholic, can approach that record.

1. How large was the area of Protestantism at the
opening of the nineteenth century? How large is it now?

2. Give a fuller account of the life of Hugo Grotius.
3. What can you discover concerning the history of

the British and Dutch East India companies?
4. How did the work of such companies affect Chris-
tian missions?
5. How did the treatment accorded the Indians in
Pennsylvania differ from that in other parts of the col-
onies? With what results?
6. Why have missionaries so frequently begun their
work by translating the Bible into the language of the
region where they have gone?
CHAPTER XX
METHODISM BRINGS NEW ENERGY
Historians agree that civilization in modern England
reached its lowest ebb during the early years of the
eighteenth century. Corruption in politics, formaUsm in
reUgion, immorality in the lives of the rich, and besotted-
ness in the hves of the poor, were the marks of the period.
The church, both estabhshed and nonconformist, had
almost ceased to have any real power in the lives of men.
"Rehgion seemed to be dying a natural death.
Preachers taught a cold morality. Churchgoing was
ceasing to be fashionable, and the masses of the people
were increasing in brutality, ignorance, and drunkenness.
ReHgion was saved not by argument but by men dis-
covering the immediate presence of God in saving mercy
in their own hearts."^
These revivals marked the birth of Methodism, as well
as an awakening in other Protestant churches that was
to lead directly to the missionary enthusiasm of the
present.
The Moravians' Greatest Convert

We have seen how the Moravians, from their head-
quarters in Saxony, sent their missionaries to many
parts of the world. One such group was on a ship that
crossed the Atlantic, carrying pioneers to the newly
established colony of Georgia, in the year 1735.
—
The effect of a storm. Winter on the Atlantic is
>A. W. Harrison, The Church oj Twenty Centuries, p. i68.
172
METHODISM BRINGS NEW ENERGY 173
seldom pleasant, and the little vessel passed through at

least one storm when all but the Moravians showed their
fear of death. Among the other passengers, busily-
engaged with his duties as the minister of the Church of
England for this group of colonists, was a slight, ascetic
young man who had just turned his back on the Uni-
versity of Oxford, lured largely by the prospect of preach-
ing to the Indians. The calmness of the Moravians
during the storm fascinated him. He spent hours with
them, seeking their spiritual secrets. On land he imme-
diately sought their bishop, intent upon further ques-
tionings. A single question stopped him *'Do you know
:
Jesus Christ?" When he stammered, "I know he is the

Saviour of the world," the Moravian inexorably pressed
him: "True, but do you know he has saved you?"
—
Epworth, Oxford, the Holy Club. That questioner
was John Wesley, and behind his question lay years of
seeking for spiritual certainty. Born in the Epworth
rectory in 1703, John Wesley came from a long line of
eminent ministers, most of them not members of the
Church of England. His father was a man of scholarly
tastes who devoted a lifetime to service within the
establishment. His mother must rank as one of the
remarkable women of modern times. John was the
fifteenth, and his brother Charles the eighteenth, in a
family of nineteen children. From early childhood the
mother, in particular, succeeded in impressing her spirit
of deep religious concern upon these two sons.
Despite the poverty of the family, three of the sons
graduated from Oxford University, and all were ordained
in the Anglican ministry. Such were the attainments of
John that he was elected a Fellow of Lincoln College,
Oxford. While in the university, the two younger Wesley
brothers became deeply concerned as to their own
spiritual condition, and, finding a few other students in a
similar state of mind, formed a group that soon came to
give most of its time to religious studies and works of
philanthropy. So strict were those in this circle in their
manner of living that other undergraduates dubbed them
the "Holy Club," and later, "Methodists." It was not
the first time that a nickname, given in derision, has been
adopted and become of marked significance.
—
The Georgia mission. It was Charles Wesley who
first turned the steps of the two brothers toward America.
Offered a position as a sort of secretary to General

Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, he secured a place
as a missionary for his brother. Some idea of the culture
ofJohn Wesley is given by the knowledge that, while in
Savannah, he conducted services in German, French, and
Italian, as well as in English.
The work of the two Wesleys in Georgia can hardly
be recalled as a success. The Indians gave no evidence
of any desire to listen to their preaching. The colonists
proved intractable under the extreme high-church usages
of the two brothers. Finally Charles returned to Eng-
land, soon to be followed by his brother. Nor had the
spiritual restlessness of either of them been stilled while
in the New World, although both had labored to the
limit of their strength.
—
Wesley*s conversion. Once back in England, John
Wesley was fortunate to fall in with another Moravian,
who was stopping over in London while on his way to
America. Both brothers eagerly sought the inner spiritual
satisfaction which this Moravian, Peter Bohler, taught
might belong to any Christian. Charles obtained it first.
Three days later the older brother, while attending a
"society" that Bohler had organized before sailing,
underwent the experience that has meant so much to
Christian history. Listening to the reading of Luther's

preface to his Commentary on Romans, Wesley himself
says: "About a quarter before nine, while he [Lutherl
was describing the change which God works in the heart
through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation;
and an assurance was given me that he had taken away
my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin
and death."
The Work of the Wesleys and Whitefield

After a short period spent in Germany with the
Moravians, John Wesley began that lifework that was to
have such a transforming effect upon English society.
In it he was assisted from the first by his brother, and
even more by George Whitefield, one of the greatest
preachers, judging by the effects of his sermons, in the
history of the church.
A new —
kind of preaching. Whitefield had been a
member "Holy Club" at Oxford. To him religious
of the
certainty and power had come soon after graduation, and
he had been able from the day of his ordination as an
Anghcan minister, while still scarcely out of his teens, to
pack the churches of London with those who were eager
to hear him. A successful sojourn in Georgia had brought
him back to England to secure funds for work under-
taken there, only to hold him there in the fervor that
his evangelistic preaching evoked.
Whitefield invited John Wesley to preach in Bristol.
Since, by this time, the Wesley brothers were barred
from most London pulpits because of the "enthusiasm"
of their preaching, John Wesley gladly accepted the op-
portunity. However, he found, upon arriving in Bristol,
that most of Whitefield 's work was being done in the
—

open air. It seemed a radical departure from accepted
methods, but after a brief hesitation Wesley embraced it,
and soon proved, in London as well as Bristol, a field
preacher with power equal to that of Whitefield.
It was no new message that these preachers brought.
It had most of its roots in the teaching of Saint Paul and
Luther. Men were sinners, deserving condemnation and
punishment. They might be saved by an act of faith in
Christ. They might have an inner knowledge of such
salvation, leading to a joyful Hfe. If they persisted in
living right lives, they might finally come so under the
sway of right motives —love to God and one's fellows
that they could be said to have obtained perfection in
Christian character. Inner reHgion would show itself in
outreaching forms of service. This was the message that
proved able to transform the lives of hundreds of
thousands.
The organization of Methodism. —
There is a belief,
generally accepted, that John Wesley was a relative of

that Arthur Wellesley who, as the Duke of Wellington,
remains the greatest soldier of modern England. Cer-
tainly, he had many of the characteristics of a great
general. When he found multitudes swayed by his
preaching he was unwilling to let them work out their
further spiritual career without assistance, but began to
gather his converts in "societies" and "bands" for mutual
examination and encouragement.
These groups were not, technically, outside the
Anghcan Church, of which their founder remained a
minister. But there was little place given them within
the establishment, and gradually they became more and
more sufficient to themselves. Finally, a passing need
led Wesley to subdivide them into "classes" of about a
dozen each, each under the direction of a "class-leader,"
and these, while furnishing an efficient discipline, served

to cut almost the last tie with the Church of England.
In the beginning the supervision of these "societies"
and "classes" was entirely in the hands of the Wesleys,
Whitefield, and the handful of AngHcan ministers who
supported them. Then lay preachers began to appear in
the ranks of the converts. At first the Wesley brothers
would have discouraged these, but their aged mother
cautioned against such a course, and lay preaching soon
became one of Methodism's distinctive marks. After
many years, under the pressure constantly applied,
Wesley, who had become convinced that in the ancient
church there was no distinction between bishops and
other ministers, began to ordain these preachers. Yet he
held tenaciously to the theory that he and his followers
were acting within the ranks of the Anglican church.
—
The spread of Methodism. From the year of his
spiritual stirring in 1738 until his death in 1791, John
Wesley was constantly on the go. Up and down the
United Kingdom he traveled, at first on horseback and
later by coach, until it was said that nobody in England
had ever paid as many toUs. It was his custom to preach
every morning at five; once again before noon; again in
the late afternoon; and generally again at night. For a
time he had an able lieutenant in his brother Charles, but
when the brother's health became such that he was
forced to deliver his message in song, other stalwarts
came forward to man that "itinerancy" that has been
the glory of the Methodist ministry.
Whitefield took the essential message of Methodism
back to America, and other preachers, as we shall see,
carrying Wesley's express command, traveled throughout
the colonies and the republic. A flourishing Methodist
community sprang up in Wales, and there were societies
and Holland. By the time Wesley
in Ireland, Scotland,
died there were more than one hundred and thirty thou-
sand Methodists in various parts of the world, and one
of them, Thomas Coke, an Oxford doctor of laws, and
the man chosen to be the founder's representative in
settingup the Methodist Church in America, had died
on shipboard and been buried in the Red Sea as he sailed
toward Ceylon, Methodism's first missionary to the
Orient.
Some By-Products of Methodism

Many historians and political students have given
credit to Wesley for the manner in which he "largely
revolutionized the religious condition of the English
lower and middle classes," and stabilized Anglo-Saxon
time when the life of the continent had
civilization at the
to pass through the upheaval of the French Revolution.
But there were other effects worth noting. Perhaps we
should call them by-products.
—
The arousing of the churches. All the churches of
England felt the stirring of the Methodist revival. With-
in and without the establishment men began to preach
with a warmth that brought large increases in member-
ship to most of the churches. The power of this preach-
ing stirred many men of influence who never came within
the range of Wesley's work with the masses.
The quickening of a social conscience. Many of the —
men thus touched caught a sense of their responsibility
toward their fellows that led to various philanthropic
efforts. So William Wilberforce went to fight slavery,
until the trade was abolished throughout the British
Empire in 1807, and all slaves freed in 1833. So John
Howard began the crusade for prison reform. And so
Robert Raikes began "the first systematic and successful
efforts to reach the poor and unschooled with a Christian

training on a large scale" when he opened the first Sun-
day schools.
The impulse to foreign missions. —
But even more
to our purpose was the propulsion given Protestant mis-
sions by the work of the Wesleys. For years some men
of vision had been feeling the compulsion to preach in
non- Christian lands. At the very beginning of the
eighteenth century Isaac Watts wrote one of the greatest
missionary hymns:
"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Doth his successive journeys run."
Yet needed the enthusiasm of the evangelical revival
it
to break down the prejudice of the masses of English

Protestants, and make it possible for Wilham Carey to
lead in the organization of the society that sent him as
the first missionary of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism to
India.
1. Give a detailed description of social and religious
conditions in England at the opening of the eighteenth

century.
2. Discuss the influence of heredity as shown in the
case of the Wesley brothers.
3. What can you discover concerning John Wesley's
experiences in America?
4. Give a brief character sketch of Whitefield; of
Charles Wesley; of John Wesley.
5. What causes contributed most to the success of
the work of the Wesleys?
6. Compare in importance the direct and indirect
results of the Methodist revival.
CHAPTER XXI
SPREADING RELIGION IN AMERICA
We are familiar with the story of the occupation of
what is now the United States of America by white men.
Sometimes we forget that rehgious interests played a
dominating part in that great migration. Before proceed-
ing with the account of the world-spread of Christianity
it is necessary to recall how America became a base for
that spread.
Religion in the Colonies

We need only recount the general aspects of the groups
that planted the American colonies to understand the
forms of worship that distinguished them.
The settlement of the Atlantic seaboard. —
In general, it was the cavalier who settled the Southern
colonies. Even the settlements in Georgia, composed as
they were of persons largely recruited from the ranks of
the poor, had behind them such an aristocrat as General
Oglethorpe. So it happened that the Southern colonies
provided a natural home for the forms of the Church of
England, and the usages of that church were about as
well established there as in the homeland.
New England, as we know, was settled by the Puritans,
who estabhshed a form of Congregationalism that was as
rigorous in its efforts to control the life of the colonies as
any established worship in the world. In time the men
of New England largely freed themselves from political
interference by their churches, but it was not until 1818
in Connecticut and until 1834 in Massachusetts that
180
SPREADING RELIGION IN AMERICA i8i
Congregationalism was disestablished and men relieved

from paying taxes for its support.
Between the extremes south and north other forms of
worship found root. Three of the intermediary colonies
were estabhshed directly as a result of rehgious scruples.
One was Maryland, planted by Lord Baltimore to provide
a home for the Roman Catholics, who were denied full
civil and rehgious privileges in most English com-
munities. Another was Pennsylvania, where William
Penn gave the Quakers their unmolested home. And
then there was Rhode Island, where first Roger WiUiams
and after him the Baptists sought freedom from what
they considered the tyranny of conscience exercised by
the Puritans in the older New England colonies. AU
these colonies provided religious liberty for their settlers.
The other colonies in the center of the country— New
York, New —
Delaware were largely commercial
Jersey,
ventures, and took upon themselves readily the forms of
the Church of England, with tolerance for any other
mode of worship that might be desired. In New York
the churches left by the original Dutch settlers were very
strong. In New Jersey there were Presbyterian congre-
gations of great strength.
Colleges in the wilderness.—Ône thing distin-
guished the churches of the colonies, wherever planted.
They were determined that their ministry should be well
educated. The whole history of America has been pro-
foundly affected by the devotion of the pioneers to learn-
ing. One has a higher respect than ever for those first
colonists when he sees them pausing, almost before they
have cleared their lands, to estabhsh colleges.
Sixteen years after the landing at Plymouth the
Puritan ministers of Massachusetts had established
Harvard College. Before the end of that century the
Anglican Church had founded William and Mary. In the
first year of the eighteenth century Yale came into being
to supply the needs of the Congregational colony of New

Haven. Later in the century the Presbyterians were to
establish Princeton, the BaptistsBrown, and the Dutch
Reformed Church was to plant what is now Rutgers.
In fact, examination shows that it was the churches who
were responsible for that large place given to popular
education that has been so distinctive a feature of
American life.
Colonial Christianity. —
Despite the early fervor that
took the Pilgrims to New England, it was not long before
their worship, because it was so cut off from the rest of
the world, became a hard, dogmatic, formal affair. In the
south, as John Wesley found in Georgia, there was little
Occasional men, as we have seen (see
zeal for rehgion.
Chapter XVIII), were ready to devote themselves to
work among the Indians. But, for the most part, the
approach of the middle of the eighteenth century saw
religion becoming as cold an affair in the colonies as it
had become in the mother country.
The Great Awakening

This condition made the revival that took place, be-
ginning with the preaching of Jonathan Edwards in New
England in 1734, and continuing about ten years,
memorable as the Great Awakening.
—
The preaching of Whitefield. It was in this move-
ment that the power of George Whitefield was most
plainly shown. He made his second visit to America in
1740, while still only twenty-five years old. He found the
ground broken by the preaching of Edwards, and wher-
ever he went remarkable results attended his preaching.
"It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over an
SPREADING RELIGION IN AMERICA 183
audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the

gospel," wrote Mrs. Edwards. "I have seen upward of
a thousand people hang on his words with breathless
silence, broken only by an occasional, half-suppressed
sob. He impresses the ignorant, and not less the half-
educated and refined."
Hundreds were permanently changed by the preaching
of Whitefield, but there was much discussion of the per-
manency of such effort and many divisions in the ranks
of the churches resulted. Before he died, while on his
seventh visit to America in 1773, Whitefield had been
able to dissipate the personal antagonism at first shown
toward him by the conservative leaders in such schools
as Harvard and Yale. But also by that time the fervor
of the revival had died down.
Other leaders in the revival. Besides Jonathan —
Edwards, the Great Awakening brought forward other
leaders. Of these the Tennants, who founded the Log
College in New Jersey out of which Princeton grew, were
noted for even greater outbursts of emotion than marked
the preaching of Whitefield. One Anglican wrote: "After
him [Whitefield] came one Tennent, a monster! impudent
and noisy, and told them that they were damn'd,
damn'd, damn'd; this charmed them, and in the most
dreadful winter I ever saw, people wallowed in the snow
night and day, for the benefit of his beastly brayings, and
many ended their lives under these fatigues."^
—
After the Awakening. Reaction seems inevitable
after such a general stirring up of the emotions. To this
was soon added, in the colonies, the intrusion of political
interests. Before the middle of the eighteenth century
the colonists had few poUtical matters of large concern to
'Quoted by Moncrief, op. cit., p. 414.

command their attention. After that they were caught
in the full tide of events thatbegan with the capture of
Canada, continued with the agitation over taxes, and
culminated in the Revolutionary War and the formation
of the United States of America. And during aU that
period of struggle, fine as were the goals in view, the
power of religion steadily declined. By the end of the
Revolutionary War the spiritual condition of the coun-
try was deplorable.
The Days of the CiRcuiT-RroERS

The young republic was called back to a vital religious
lifevery largely by the efforts of a new type of preacher
— the circuit-rider. He was the distinctive gift of
Methodism to the development of America.
Methodism enters America. It was — not long be-
fore men who had been kindled by the fervor of the
Methodist revival in England and Ireland began to
spread the same message in America. Ten years before
the signing of the Declaration of Independence Methodist
societies came into existence in New York and Maryland.
By 1 77 1 the growth had been so great that Wesley sent
over a young man, Francis Asbury, to take charge of the
societies. Asbury was assisted by quite a large body of
lay preachers. They divided the parishes into "circuits,"
as had been done in England. But distances differed in
the colonies and in Britain, and to cover their circuits the
Methodist preachers found it necessary to travel hun-
dreds of miles. This they did largely on horseback, and
thus the Methodist circuit-rider, pushing his way along
the rough roads and trails, and perhaps studying a Greek
Testament as he rode, became a familiar figure in the
most outlying settlements of those times.
The Revolutionary War brought the work of Asbury
and temporary stop. John Wesley wrote

his helpers to a
a tract chiding the colonists for their attitude toward the
mother country, which served no purpose other than to
draw suspicion upon his American followers. At the out-
break of fighting many of the preachers returned to
England. Asbury stayed on, but for a time it was neces-
sary for him to go into hiding. However, long before the
end of the war the loyalty of the Methodists as a group
had been proved, and Asbury had won the confidence of
the American leaders to such an extent that he was able
to resume his work on a scale even larger than before the
break. At the end of the Revolution the Methodists
found they had seventy preachers and twelve thousand
members in the new repubhc.
Forward with the pioneers. — This very growth
proved an embarrassment. In the mind of John Wesley
his societies had always been thought of as a part of the
Church of England. But during the Revolution the
Church of England had ceased to exist in America. There
was no way by which these Methodists could obtain
the sacraments, and they became insistent that their
preachers be given the right to administer them. Wesley
endeavored to secure ordination for some of his preachers
by bishops of the Anglican Church. When this proved
unsuccessful, he ordained them himself, since he believed
a minister had as much right to do this as a bishop.
Thomas Coke was the first man ordained by Wesley.
He came to America and ordained Asbury. The two then
ordained other Methodist preachers, who set up a church
independent of Wesley in England, that has survived to
this day in the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was a
church of pioneers. Its circuit-riders followed every trail,
crossing the mountains into Kentucky with Daniel
Boone's comrades, pressing into Ohio, Indiana, and the
other States of the Middle West as fast as white occupa-
tion took place.
Asbury himself set the pace. Until he died, in 1816,
he lived almost constantly in the saddle. His journeyings
averaged six thousand miles a year. He ordained more
than four thousand preachers. He proved an organizer
equal to Wesley, and he combined with an intense
evangelistic spirit an interest in education that made for
permanency in all the work that he and his itinerant
preachers did. "The records of the journeyings and toils
of the Methodist preachers remind one vividly of the
apostles and their helpers, and of the perils through
which they passed in the first age of Christianity."^
The influence of the circuit-riders.În estimating
the effect of these itinerants upon the life of America
mention must not only be made of their direct labors,
leading as those did to the gathering of the most numer-
ous body of Christians in the country. Nor can attention
be confined to the fervid form of religious experience that,
in campmeeting and revival, they helped to make
familiar in most American communities. With these
must be reckoned their influence upon other churches.
For from this time comes a resurrection of energy on the
part of all the communions that had been planted before
—
the Revolution the Presbyterians, the Congregational-
ists, the Baptists, the Lutherans, the Episcopahans, the
—
Catholics which, whether it expressed itself in ways
akin to those used by the Methodists, or in other means,
was to lead to great accessions. And other denominations
were to be called forth by the same period, and likewise
were to affect American life. But of all this we will treat
at more length in another chapter.
» Fisher, op. cil., p. S78.


1. Was religious tolerance characteristic of aU the
American colonies? What colony proved most tolerant?
2. What do you mean by saying that Congregational-
ism was "established" in certain parts of New England?

3. Take a complete list of the colleges of America.
How many of them owe their origin to some branch of
the Christian Chiurch?
4. Why should a period of struggle for mdependence
prove inimical to the cause of religion ?
5. Give a fuller account of the life of Asbury.
6. A statue of Asbury, as the typical circuit-rider, is
being erected at the national capital. Why?
CHAPTER XXII
CHRISTIANITY IN MODERN INDIA
Legend maintains that the gospel was first carried into
India by Saint Thomas, one of the apostles. Early-
travelers, such as Marco Polo, have left historical
evidence of the presence of Nestorian Christians in that
country centuries ago. We have already seen how Saint
Francis Xavier, and after him other Jesuits, planted
Catholicism about the Portuguese settlements on the coast
in the sixteenth century (see Chapter XIV). And we have
seen the beginning of Protestant work under the Danish
missions of the eighteenth century (see Chapter XIX).
But was not until the nineteenth century that Chris-
it
tianity began vitally to affect the life of India.
Carey and the Pioneers

To understand the way in which Protestant missions
gained their foothold in India it is necessary to recall the
peculiar manner in which that empire came under
western rule.
The British East India —
Company. The Portuguese
were the first Europeans to reach India, but they were
soon followed by the Dutch, French, Enghsh, and Danes.
British interests were mainly in the extension of trade,
and were represented by the British East India Company,
chartered in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and given
extraordinary powers whereby it not only held a mo-
nopoly of the Far Eastern trade of England, but was also
given what amounted to the right to govern politically.
In India the empire of the Moguls disintegrated rapidly
1 88
CHRISTIANITY IN MODERN INDIA 189
after the seventeenth century. On the other hand, the

ambition and power of the British and French increased.
Finally, at the same time Britain was expelling France
from Canada, the British, led by CHve, defeated the
French at the battle of Plassey, and so achieved virtual
control of India. But it is to be remembered that it was
the British East India Company that won the victory,
rather than Great Britain as a government. And it was
the British East India Company that took up the rule of
India, and maintained it for more than a century.
The British East India Company proved itself an en-
lightened despotism in its rule. Its officers were, on the
whole, men of character, who did what they honestly
thought was for the best interests of the people, provided
that the profits of the Company were not lessened.
Abuses of power were frequent, but Warren Hastings,
the greatest of the Company's governors, was telling the
truth when at his trial he declared that in the light of
the opportunities to amass wealth that had been his he
marveled at his moderation So absolute was this rule,
!
carried on at a distance from England and with only in-

direct checks from the British government, that it was
necessary for any one who would enter the country,
whether as a missionary or otherwise, to obtain the con-
sent of the Company.
William Carey. —In the closing years of the nine-
teenth century the reports of the voyages of Captain
Cook Chapter XXVIII) aroused a humble Baptist
(see
preacher in England, who supported himself by working
as a cobbler, to write several pamphlets and deliver
several sermons designed to move his fellow Baptists to
engage in missionary work in the islands Cook had
opened. The formation of the Baptist Missionary Society
of England was the result, and the cobbler-preacher,
known as the father of Protestant Anglo-Saxon missions,
William Carey, was sent out as the first missionary, sus-
tained by his famous motto: "Attempt great things for
God; expect great things from God."
India, and not the South Seas, was the territory in
which the Baptist society resolved to begin its work. The
East India Company did its best to discourage Carey's
coming, for it feared the political effect of work to im-
prove the condition of the natives. But when Carey
actually landed, and proved his ability to support him-
self and master the native languages, the authorities
perceived how valuable a man he might be. When the

Company founded a college at Calcutta, Carey became
professor of Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi. He held the
chair for thirty years.
The cobbler-missionary proved to be a marvelous
linguist. Missions in India are to this day hindered by
the multiplicity of languages and dialects, of which there
are more than a hundred. Carey sufficiently mastered
twenty-four of these to translate the Bible, or parts of
the Bible, into them. He early realized that the size of
the task precluded hope of converting the entire empire
through the preaching of foreigners, and concentrated
most of his attention on the training of native workers.
He was an unfailing advocate of various social reforms,
chief among them the abolition of suttee, the ancient
practice by which widows are burned on the funeral
pyres of their husbands.
—
Alexander Duff. Four years before Carey died, in
1834, there came to India the first missionary of the
Established Church of Scotland, Alexander Duff. A
university graduate whose scholarship would have been
acknowledged in any circle, Duff gave to Indian mis-
sions the ideal of education as a mode of approach to the
masses of that country. Schools were founded in large

numbers, for which the East India Company proved
ready to provide most of the funds, in which education
was provided, especially for children of the higher classes.
Most of the instruction was in English, and it is safe to
say that the success of Duff's schools has fixed this
feature of the higher educational system of India to
this day.
The mutiny. —Long before Duff, American mission-
aries had begun to arrive in India. Turned back from
the territory of the Company, because they arrived while
America and Britain were at war, the American pioneers
went to Ceylon and Bombay. Work in Burma, which
was then independent of India, was started by Judson,
one of the greatest of American missionaries. Other
American missions were planted in India as the pohcy
of the Company became more liberal.
In 1857 long-smoldering discontent on the part of
certain groups of the natives led to the revolt of the
Sepoys, part of the Indian troops in the army main-
tained by the Company. After some horrible butcherings
the mutiny was wiped out in blood, but its recollection
has had a profound effect on British policy since that
time. It was realized that the point had been reached at
which the Company could not successfully govern so
huge a population and territory. The immediate result
of the mutiny was, therefore, the revocation of the Com-
pany's charter and the taking over of the empire by the
British government, with the British queen proclaimed
as empress.
Christian Effort Since the Mutiny

Christian missions suffered dreadfully during the
mutiny. Not only were many missionaries killed, but
hundreds of their converts, accused of treason in accept-
ing the foreigner's religion, suffered martyrdom. Yet
this suffering served to call forth even greater efforts than
in the past. Numbersof British and American mis-
sionary societies thathad not previously been interested
poured their representatives into the country. Forms of
work that had scarcely been tried before were now
pushed on a large scale.
—
Types of missionary work. The foundation of the
work was still evangelistic. Great numbers of Indian
preachers worked side by side with men from overseas in
vocal proclamation of the Christian message. In fact,
the greater part of this work came to be done by natives,
while the foreigners were employed increasingly as super-
visors of the forces.
More and more attention was given to the educational
approach.Not only were colleges established there are —
nineteen degree-giving institutions under Protestant
auspices in India to-day — but elementary education was
provided on such a scale that it is possible to report:
"The missions are far in advance of the government. . . .
Until quite recently the only schools for women were

mission schools. To this day, despite the excellency of
the government schools in which strict religious neutrality
prevails, and despite the founding of private schools for
both sexes and all classes, many pupils from non-
. . .
Christian famihes attend the mission schools. They

acknowledge that what they seek is the moral Ufe and
religious atmosphere of these schools."^
Of great value was the industrial education developed
for multitudes. India is dominantly agricultural, with
nine tenths of her people at work on the land. Her
> E. C. Moore, The Spread of Christianity in the Modern World, University of

Chicago Press, publishers, p. 134.
K o
craftsmen have proved through generations their sur-

passing skiU. It has been the good fortune of the missions
to be largely used by the goverimient in various methods
of education whereby the productivity of both farmer
and artisan has been increased.
Medical missions have greatly increased in India
since the mutiny. There is no quicker way of winning
the confidence of a people than by heahng their sick-
nesses, as multitudes of devoted missionary-physicians
have demonstrated.
Attention was also secured by a large use of literature.
The education of so many offered a great market for
books and periodicals in India, which publishers began
to develop intensively. In the years succeeding the
mutiny the missions entered the same field, and have
planted India deep with a Christian literature of devo-
tion and argument that has exercised a profound effect
on the thinking of that country.
Results of Christian missions in India. —The early
which
Jesuit missionaries claimed results for their labors
can only be accepted on the basis of a superficial work.
By the time when Protestant work began in India the
Catholic community had fallen to a low level, both in
size and spirituaHty. It was a long time before large
accessions began to be made to the Protestant churches,
but during recent years they have grown much more
rapidly than the population. In the decade from 1901
to 191 1 the population of India increased 6.4%. At the
same time the number of Christians increased by 34-2%,
or five times as fast as the population. The total number
of church members, not counting foreigners, was shown
by the government census of 191 1 to be 3,574,770.
At the present the missions are perplexed by the mass
movements that are influencing whole communities.
especially of the lowest castes, to seek Christian baptism.
Social motives enter largely into these movements,
whereby villages vote to become Christian, and then, led
by their headmen, seek out the missionary. Protestant-
ism always has held back from such movements en masse,
waiting until the individual has given evidence of a
certain amount of Christian knowledge and experience
on his own part. But the challenge presented by these
multitudes, who number at least a million people and
will increase if encouraged, is not one from which the
missionaries can lightly turn away.
A final development characteristic of Protestantism in
India since the mutiny has been the growth of a native
indigenous church. In the beginning, and to a large
extent still, the work of the missionaries has been among
the poor. These proved willing to order their lives in
strict accord with the denominational distinctions and
details of practice enjoined by the missionaries. Now
this is changing. Men of a higher type are accepting the
fearful social penalty that it frequently entails to become
a Christian openly, but are at the same time providing
leaders for the Indian Christians who are increasingly
taking over the control of the Christian movement. This
isa tendency that is bound to increase until the day
comes when foreign missionaries are superfluous, and
Indian Christianity orders and maintains its own life.
By-Products of Christianity in India

Many of the most significant effects of Christianity in
India are to be seen outside the acknowledged Christian
community.
The breakdown of caste. —
India's most stagnating
socialcustom has been her caste system, whereby men
are born into certain places in the social order from which
—
it is impossible for them to move. The attack that Chris-

tian teaching, with its doctrine of human equahty before
God, is to make on such a conception is clear. It
bound
must not be thought that Christianity has been alone
in working to overcome caste. Many agencies, notably
the promiscuous travel on the railroads, have worked to
the same end. But Christianity has borne its part, and
the bands of caste are at least loosening, if they are not
breaking, in India to-day.

The reform of Hinduism. — Equally significant is the
restlessness within Hinduism itself. Several centuries be-
fore Christ, Buddhism arose in India to reform the
religious life of the country. But Buddhism was itself
absorbed back into Hinduism, which went on its way

without self-examination until the challenge of Chris-
tianity's monotheism and ethical requirements began to
make itself felt. Popular Hinduism, with its debasing
and idolatrous customs, could not well undergo that
challenge. As a result, any number of reform movements
have appeared within Hinduism in the last few decades.
Many of these seek a sort of a combination of the good
elements of all religions, and represent a high level of
thought. The trouble is that they are mostly just that
—
systems of thought without that fervor of spirit which
is needed to move the multitudes.
—
The awakening of national pride. India is in the
full tide of an awakened self-consciousness. She has
demanded, and obtained, from the British Empire the
first measure of self-government, but she presses on to-
ward a status as a self-governing commonwealth, if not

complete independence. The sacrifices she made in the
World War, when she sent seven hundred thousand men
to the front, have earned for her claims the deepest
consideration on the part of the British. Many Indian
leaders would deny that Christianity has contributed to
this movement Indian freedom. But the nature of
for
the Christian gospel is such that it is impossible to intro-
duce it in any society without the birth of a spirit of

self-respect, which leads inevitably to just such a move-
ment as now possesses India.
India To-morrow
One Indian in every eighty-six is to-day a Christian.
That proportion will constantly be changing as the
hundreds of thousands waiting outside the doors of the
churches are instructed and baptized. It is not too much
to hope that, a century hence, when India has taken her
place in the ranks of the world's great self-governing
nations, she will acknowledge as a dominating influence
in her life the presence ofan Indian Christian Church,
Indian in thought, Indian in control, yet Christian in all
its effects.

1. How did the British East India Company help the
spread of Christianity in India? How hinder?

2. What resemblances did the work of Carey hold
to that of other pioneer missionaries of whom we have

studied?
3. Has the church to which you belong a mission in
India? When was it established and by whom?
4. Give an extended discussion of the caste system
of India. In what way has this system affected Chris-
tian missions?
5. How might industrial education be used to for-
ward the Christian enterprise in such a country as India?

6. Give an outline of the present political situation in
India. What relation, if any, has this to Christianity?
CHAPTER XXIII
CHINA AND CHRISTIANITY
China stands to-day in the focus of world attention.
Politically, her future is regarded as of vast import to the
rest of the nations. And religiously she presents Chris-
tianity with a great challenge and a great opportunity.
She is open just now to the Christian message as is
perhaps no other large non-Christian country. If she
accepts it, her adherence is bound profoundly to affect
all future history.
The Problem of China

When the first Protestant missionary began his work
in China he said that he doubted if, after a century of
effort, there would be a thousand Christians in the coun-
try. Such pessimism is not to be wondered at in view of
the difficulties the task presented.
China's size. — China Proper, as the eighteen princi-
pal provinces are known, is not much larger than the
United States. But in this territory there lives almost a
quarter of the entire human race. If you include the
outlying provinces in your reckoning, it is safe to say that
in converting China you undertake to convert more than
twice asmany people as there are in all the Protestant
churches in the world. In mere size China presents the
hardest task that has ever loomed before Christianity.
China's conservatism. — China's people are noted for
their conservatism. Until very recent times they have
not welcomed change. They were cut off for centuries
from the rest of the world, so that their living and think-
197
ing formed the habit of proceeding in certain grooves
from which they cannot be easily moved. It is no small
thing to change the customs of four millenniums, espe-
cially when they are embraced by so many people. The
attempt of one emperor to introduce reforms as recently
as 1898 brought a total loss of power upon him.
—
China's religions. China had her worships when
Christianity came seeking entrance. There was the
animism that filled the country with spirits, most of them
malignant, and that made the religion of millions mainly
an attempt to placate these bearers of ill-fortune. There
was the Taoism, that had degenerated from a high-
minded effort to live in accord with the universe, as
taught by Lao-tze, to a mere necromancy and jumble of
superstitious rites, aimed to ward off these same evil
spirits. There was the Buddhism, that had been brought
from India in the first Christian century, promising peace
from the ills of this world, winning the allegiance of many
thousands, but likewise showing signs of decay. And
there was the Confucianism, really no religion at all, but
a great system of philosophy, yet twisted in these
twenty-five centuries since the death of Confucius to
yield a form of worship to that great sage. And the
presence of all these, together with that yearly worship
of heaven performed by the Emperor for the entire
nation, proved another barrier in Christianity's way.
The First Approaches to China

Because Protestants have come so recently to China
we are apt to forget the long centuries of effort to open
up that land by other Christian forces. But the Chinese
had a way of carving their records on slabs that endure,
and so we know that there were Nestorian Christians in
China by the middle of the seventh century. Franciscans
CHINA AND CHRISTIANITY 199
reached Peking before the end of the thirteenth century,

and one of their bishops was executed there in 1362. But
these efforts came to nothing.
The —
The real start of CathoUc
Catholic missions.
work China came toward the close of the sixteenth
in
century, when, after Xavier's heartbroken death off the
closed coast of South China, another Jesuit, Matteo
Ricci, reached Canton. Ricci pressed north to Peking,
where, having made a reputation for himself as a scholar,
he was given a place at the court. When one remembers
the difficulty of the Chinese language, which is much
greater in its literary than in its spoken form, the mag-
nitude of Ricci 's scholastic achievements is clear. He left
the Catholic work in a position of great promise when
he died.
Encouraged by the reports of Jesuit success, the
Franciscans and Dominicans soon entered the country.
And it is a strange commentary on the jealousies that
often arise within the Christian communion and thus
hinder the work that, from that day to this, the various
Catholic orders working in China have so sought to
thwart one another that they have proved their own
worst enemies. Early in the eighteenth century the
Dominicans managed to get the Jesuits mixed up in a
dispute with the Pope as to the translation of certain
terms and the meaning of certain rites, and when the
pontiff decided in a manner adverse to a previous de-
cision by the Chinese emperor, that ruler, alarmed at the
power of this unseen foreigner in far-off Italy, suppressed
all Catholic missions.
Although by far the greater part of the Catholic work
was wiped out, some priests managed to stay within the
country, and converts remained when churches had been
destroyed. The Catholic work revived rapidly after the
country had been opened, following the wars with the
EngHsh and French in the nineteenth century. The
French Jesuits have again gathered large congregations,
and there are considerable numbers under the training
of Spanish and German fathers. There are about
two thousand five hundred priests, of whom almost a
half are Chinese, and two million communicants.
The Protestant pioneers. —The first Protestant mis-
sionary landed in Canton in 1807. His name was Robert
Morrison, and he came as a representative of the London
Missionary Society. Because of EngHsh hostility, he was
forced to make his voyage in an American vessel. Mor-
rison found it impossible to preach, so gave himself to
mastering the language and translating the Scriptures.
It took him seven years to win his first convert, and
when he died, in 1834, there had been just ten Chinese
baptized by all the Protestant workers in the country!
No wonder he made the prophecy we have already
quoted.
In the year Morrison died the first American mission-
ary was appointed to China in Peter Parker. He "opened
China at the point of the lancet," for he was a doctor,
and the hospital he founded in Canton proved the enter-
ing wedge in that long history of medical work that has
done so much to relieve suffering, remove prejudice, and
open the way for other Christian service.
Growth of the Christian Movement

To understand Christian missions in China it is neces-
sary to study the political history of the country since it
began to have contact with Western nations, so that it

will appear how such wars as those waged by Britain and
France served to open new fields for work. But when we
remember the causes for which those wars were waged
and the way which China, at their conclusion, was

in
mulcted, that the Chinese held back
we cannot wonder
from accepting a religion pressed upon them in such a
fashion.
—
Before the Boxer year. During generations the
growth of the Protestant missions was very slow. Suc-
ceeding treaties gave missionaries, with other foreigners,
the right to reside in certain cities, and these were grad-
ually pushed inland. But there were as degrading
foreign forces in these cities as there were uphfting. As
late as 1877 there were only thirteen thousand Protestant
converts in all China.
The most romantic phase of Protestant work during
this period was the formation of the China Inland
Mission by Hudson Taylor. About the time of the
American Civil War Mr. Taylor challenged believers in
an evangelical faith to leave the shelter of the foreign
settlements and push into the interior, trusting in the
Lord for protection, food, and the opportunity to preach.
Hundreds of devoted Christians, from many countries
and many communions, accepted that challenge, and the
China Inland Mission has, to this day, the largest mis-
sion force in the land. Its work has been largely confined
to the vocal proclamation of the gospel, so that it has not
built as large Christian coimnunities as some other mis-
sions. But, as pioneers, the workers of the China Inland
Mission have been unequaled.
—
The Boxer year. Slowly the exasperation of the
Chinese at the despoliation of their country by the
foreign powers had been mounting. In the year 1900 this
reached a crisis when a general uprising in North China,
led by the Society of Righteous Fists (mistranslated,
"Boxers"), tried to exterminate all men from abroad, and
make it possible for China to go back to her old modes
of living. This uprising was not primarily aimed against
Christianity, but because Christianity was the foreigners'
religion it suffered horribly. One hundred and thirty-five
Protestant missionaries, fifty-eight children in mission-
aries' families, thirty-five Roman Catholic priests and
nine sisters were martyred. Even worse was the fate
that befell the Chinese Christians who were thought to
have betrayed their country in accepting foreign re-
ligion. Although a chance to recant and Hve was offered
many, sixteen thousand died, frequently after fearful
torture. In Peking, groups of foreigners and Chinese
Christians were besieged for almost two months before
the arrival of a rehef column brought the summer of
madness to an end.
—
Since the Boxer year. Heavy punishment was laid
upon China for the terrible deeds of the Boxer uprising,
but in centuries to come the historian may conclude that
it was worth all the suffering because of the immediate
and complete transformation that it produced. Over-

night the Chinese began to clamor for the Western in-
struction and methods of industry they had previously
despised. Mission schools were crowded; the churches,
with the sincerity of previous converts proved by their
blood, multiplied at an amazing rate.
In 1907, a hundred years after Morrison and only
seven after the Boxer uprising, there were almost 10,000
Chinese Christian preachers and 178,000 Protestant
communicant members. The overthrow of the Manchus,
that came in 191 1, added fresh impetus to the movement,
and the latest statistics (those for 191 9) show that there
are 344,974 communicants and 617,194 more under
instruction, many of them baptized, in the Protestant
churches. In addition to these, the Young Men's Chris-
tian Association has made a great appeal to the Chinese,
and although it is only about twenty-five years old, can

report a membership of 70,000 in its various branches.
Almost every estabhshed mission in China to-day is
embarrassed by the number of those who seek member-
ship, for it is the general policy not to admit those who
cannot be properly trained.
Features of the Christian Movement

We have space to mention only three distinctive
features of present day Christianity in China.
Cooperation. —The Protestant forces long ago, in view
of the size of their field, adopted a grand strategy where-
by they seek to guard against overlapping in some
sections to the neglect of others. Moreover, in facing
certain great problems, they have resolved to pool their
strength rather than attempt the impossible single-
handed. An example is given by the union universities,
where the Christians, seeking to establish schools that
shall set the pace in higher education for all China, are
combining to conduct a few great institutions, rather
than remaining separate to carry on struggling colleges.
Union schools, union hospitals, union presses, all feature
the Protestant effort in China to-day.
—
Influence. We have spoken of the rapid growth of
the Christian community. Yet viewed in proportion to
the total number of Chinese, we see how small a part of
the population is yet Christian. Nevertheless, it is
amazing to see the influence wielded by this com-
paratively small group of Christians. Many of the
leaders of the revolution that overthrew the Manchus
were Christians. Sixty members of the first permanent
Parliament of the republic were Christians. Leaders in
education, in politics, in business are Christians. And
many leaders who are not avowed Christians are the
product of Christian schools and give evidence of Chris-
tian influence in their lives. Chinese Christians are
exercising an influence out of all proportion to their num-
bers in the making of the new republic.
The growing church. — Equally significant is the
growth of self-consciousness and power on the part of
the Chinese Christians. Until very recently the control
of Christian work has been in the hands of the foreign
missionaries. Now it is rapidly passing into Chinese
hands. There are flourishing churches entirely independ-
ent of the missions. A Chinese Home Missionary
Society, sending its own missionaries to parts of the
country where the foreigners have hardly penetrated, has
proved a success. The whole story is epitomized by the
fact that, whereas the national Protestant gathering
held in 1907 to celebrate the centennial of Morrison's
landing, had no Chinese delegates, the gathering held
in 1922 contained Chinese delegates in number equal to
the foreigners. The time is not far distant when the con-
trol of the Christian enterprise in China will pass into
Chinese hands. And they will carry it on to complete
victory.

1. Give a description of Chinese animism; Buddhism;
Taoism; Confucianism.
2. What do you think the relation of Christianity
should be to Confucianism?
3. What can you find out about the Rites Controversy
and its effect on Roman Catholic missions in China?
4. Give an outline of China's dealings with foreign
nations since the landing of Morrison, and suggest what
influence this hashad on Christian missions.
5. Why do you think Christianity is more favorably
received in China to-day than formerly?

CHAPTER XXIV
THE APPROACH TO ISLAM
In Islam Christianity has found her greatest mis-
sionary rival and her hardest field of labor. Perhaps this
is due to the measure of truth left to his followers by
Mohammed; perhaps to the savage warfare of the past

between Christians and Mohammedans. The fact re-
mains that after all these centuries Christianity has
scarcely begun to make a breach in the ranks of Islam,
and that at least in parts of Africa the followers of the
Prophet are increasing more rapidly than any other faith.
The Moslem Challenge

For centuries now Islam has been supreme in lands
once most closely connected with Christian history. And
despite political changes, there are still large regions
where the majority pray
of the inhabitants five times
daily, with their faces turned toward Mecca.
Size of the Moslem world.— 'The Moslem world as
a religious magnitude includes the whole of northern
Moslem
Africa, the area of former states or provinces
now mainly under European rule. It is being rapidly
extended by successful missionary propaganda among
Negroes in Middle Africa, now also under the rule of
various states of Christendom. It reaches Persia and
makes itself felt in India, Burma, Siam, China, and the
Dutch and English East Indies. It includes several
populous provinces of Russia. Moslem elements in the
Balkan states are not negligible."^ It is estimated that
>E. C. Moore, op. cit., p. 211.
205
2o6 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
there are about two hundred million Moslems in this
territory, of whom all but about thirty million live under
the political rule of Christian states.
Raymond Lull and Henry Martyn. —
The Crusades
represented the attempt of Christians aggressively
first
to combat the amazing growth of Mohammedanism

from its origin in an out-of-the-way part of Arabia to a
position as a world power. We have seen (see Chapter
VIII) how far short those miHtary expeditions fell of
accomplishing their ultimate aims. Also we have seen,
in Raymond Lull, who suffered martyrdom as a mis-
sionary in Tunis near the close of the thirteenth century,
the beginning of a new sort of crusade, such as the
Christian Church still pursues.
It was many centuries, however, before the example of
Lull led to further effort for the conversion of the
Moslems. After the passage of years arrangements were
made so that hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, most of
them from Russia, could cross Mohammedan territory
to worship at the shrines of Palestine. But no evangel-
istic effort of any account came out of the presence of aU
these Christians. Finally, soon after Protestant mis-

sions began their work in India, there came to that land
Henry Martyn, a graduate of Cambridge University,
afire with ambition to carry the gospel to Moslem lands.
So completely did Martyn devote himself to the study
of Arabic and its kindred tongues that his health was
completely undermined. When he finally pushed his way
into Persia he hved only a year, just long enough to
complete his translation of the Bible into Persian. But
he had opened the way, and the missionary societies by
that time formed in England and America were quick to
send others in his footsteps. When one protested at the
manner in which Martyn threw himself into his mission
THE APPROACH TO ISLAM 207
—
he replied, "Let me burn out for God!" a motto that
has inspired hundreds to seek the same career that
possessed him.
The American pioneers. —
While Martyn and the
English societies were approaching Islam from the
Indian base, American missionaries were landing in Asia
—
Minor what is often called the Near East to under- —
take what was intended as work for the Jews in Jeru-
salem, but grew into the great missions for Moslems that
have been conducted by the American Board of Com-
missioners for Foreign Missions (the Congregational
board).
Names mean httle, although it is impossible to study
this advance without remembering such men as Fiske,
Goodell, Dwight, SchaufBer, and Riggs. The mental
attainments of these men are suggested when it is said
that Riggs "had a working knowledge of twenty lan-
guages and was master of twelve." The center of their
work became Beirut, rather than Jerusalem, and atten-
tion was largely given to the establishment of schools
and the publication of the Bible and other Christian
hterature.
Spreading Christianity Through Schools

The story of the Christian effort among the Moslems,
from the establishment of the first schools in Beirut
about a hundred years ago, has been largely the account
of an effort to mold the future by forming the minds of
the students.
—
Cooperating with ancient churches. It must not
be forgotten that in entering the Near East the mis-
sionaries found there already certain Christian churches
that had branched off from the Greek Orthodox Church.
Of these the most important was the Armenian, includ-
2o8 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
ing what was perhaps the most progressive element
within the Turkish Empire.
Protestant missions began their effort at a time when
within the Armenian church there was discontent and a
desire for a clergy with better character and better
training. It seemed as though the greatest contribution
possible would be to supply this training, and then leave
the already established Christian bodies with the task of
evangelizing the masses.
For a time this policy was followed, but at last the
reactionary element within the Armenian church re-
volted against the efforts being made to reform their
priesthood, and all who had contact with the Protestants
were excommunicated. Necessity thus forced the found-
ing of a distinctive Protestant communion, which, despite
the terrible persecutions of recent years, remains with
increasing vitality.
—
Outposts of a new mind. Finally the missionaries
began to plant those educational institutions that have
played so important a part in the recent history of
Turkey, the Balkans, and the Near East. The first of
these was Robert College, developed by Cyrus Hamlin
on the shores of the Bosphorus, just outside of Constan-
tinople. Here, under the control of the Regents of the
University of the State of New York, has been built a
college in every respect comparable to the institutions of
the United States. It has drawn from every race and
religion of the Turkish Empire, with large numbers from
the Balkans, especially Bulgaria. That it has had a large
part in fomenting the recent desires for reform is con-
ceded.
Other institutions of marked influence in the Near
East have been the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut,
the Constantinople College for women, and the Inter-
^
NVaOO 0UNV7XV
national College at Smyrna. All these have been seeking

to give students a conception of the world as the Chris-
tian views it, and when we realize that such a college as
that in Beirut had in its student body a few years ago
346 boys from Greek Orthodox homes, 127 from Moslem,
62 from Jewish, 20 from Druse, as well as its 147 from
Protestant, we can understand how widespread must be
its influence.
Turkey and the Christians

Political questions growing out of the disintegration
of the Turkish Empire have deeply affected Christian
work Moslem lands during recent years.
in
—
Turkey as a ruler of Christians. It must not be
forgotten that the Turks, while enjoying special priv-
ileges, have been a minority of less than twenty per cent
of the people making up the Ottoman Empire. Many of
the subject races, particularly the Greeks and Armenians,
have been Christians. The social and civil disadvantages
laid upon these subject races have been severe, because
of the determination of the Turks to maintain their own
ascendency. Whenever opportunity has been given, both
Armenians and Greeks have proved their ability to rise
to posts of high importance or places of business control.
As a result, the feeHng of many Turks toward the Arme-
nians has been akin to that of many Christians toward
the Jews of the Middle Ages.
The Turks to repress the subject Christian
desire of the
races has been whetted by the policy of the Christian
powers. These have used the wrongs inflicted upon the
Armenians as a pretext for the furthering of their own
political designs. As the Turkish government grew more
degenerate, France, England, and Russia looked with
longing eyes toward the control of the Dardanelles, the
2IO THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
back door to Europe. Later Germany entered the con-
test. Turkey found the powers so jealous of one another
that she could play them off against each other, thus
insuring her own safety, while she dealt with her subject
races as she desired.
This has led to increasing massacres. In the '80s ana
again in the '90s of the last century thousands of Ar-
menians were killed, and the voice of the Christian world
was raised in protest. Turkey, knowing that England
would not permit Russia to move alone, nor Russia
Germany, and that the three would not act in concert,
seemed undisturbed. When the victory of the Young
Turks in 1908 brought a constitution and an apparent
new day, it also brought a renewal of the butchery, for
the Turks were determined that the economic advantages
of the new era should not be largely gathered by their
more active Christian subjects.
—
Turkey in defeat. In 191 2 the Balkan states,
former parts of the Ottoman Empire, combined to attack
Turkey. For a time they swept all before them, and it
seemed as though the end of "the sick man of Europe"
had come. But the little Balkan kingdoms proved no
more able to act in harmony than the big powers, and
soon fell to fighting among themselves to such an extent
that Turkey regained almost all she had lost.
Then came the World War, in which Turkey threw in

her lot with the Central Empires. Once more she has
lost. Once more she has seemed at the mercy of the
Christian powers, and the world has looked for some
expiation of her record of bloodshed. During the war
Turkey carried through the most systematic and awful
massacre of the Armenians in her history, seeking abso-
lutely to exterminate that race. In all history there is
no record of deliberate fiendishness to surpass the Turkish

atrocities of the past five years. Yet to-day, almost four

years after the end of the war, Turkey remains in
possession of Constantinople and bids fair to continue
a political factor in Europe, because the Christian
nations have not yet reached the point where they can
sink their own jealousies sufficiently to deal with her.
The Outlook for Christian Missions

It is hard, in the confusion of these years following the
Great War, to prophesy as to what the future holds for
Christian work among the Moslems.
—
The present situation. What is the effect to be of
the gradual passing of almost all Moslem territory under
the political domination of Christian states? At the be-
ginning of this chapter we pointed out the spots where
Mohammedanism now flourishes. Note that all these
regions, with the exception of China (where the Moslems
are not more than one twentieth of the population) are
under Christian rule. Even Arabia, with the sacred
cities of Mecca and Medina, is now practically under
Enghsh control. At the least, this will make it possible
for Christians to carry on missionary work among
Moslems where they wish. And in some parts, par-
have been noteworthy accessions
ticularly in India, there
to the Christian communities from Moslem ranks.
—
Possible difficulties. This political advantage must
not blind us to possible difficulties. Some may grow
directly out of the political situation, as at present in
India, where the Moslem subjects of Great Britain are
greatly stirred up over what they declare to be the un-
just treatment meted Turkey. But more likely is it that
Mohammedanism, shut out from political influence by
the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, will experience
a spiritual renewal that will increase her missionary
activity and make her adherents more than ever difficult
of approach.
The goal in view. —However, although Christians
should not be surprised if a long period of ill success at-
tends their efforts with Islam, the final outcome cannot
be doubted. Mohammedanism is on the down grade.
Its weakness in providing poHtical energy has been
demonstrated. It has no mental life wherewith to face
the universe we now know. Spiritually we do not believe
that, with all its contributions, it can completely supply
men's inner needs. We can trust that the day wiU soon
come when the so-called Christian nations will prove
their power to deal with the political problems presented
by the break-up of the Turkish rule in a more Christian
spirit than they have shown. But all the time we can
beheve that the continued attack on the foundations of
the Moslem faith, through Christian schools and Chris-
tian literature, will bring its ultimate reward in the final
disappearance of Christianity's greatest rival.

1. Outline the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire
since the beginning of the nineteenth century.
2. What elements in Mohammedan teaching do you
consider true?
3. Do you consider that Protestant missionaries to
Asia Minor were wise in trying to cooperate with the
Armenian Church? Why?
4. Give an outline of the various Armenian massacres.
5. Why do you believe education has been considered
the most effective form of approach to Islam?

6. What dangers to the Christian enterprise may
arise asa result of the political dominance of Christian
powers over Moslem states?
CHAPTER XXV
THE CROSS IN THE JAPANESE EMPIRE

Six small islands, part of a seventh, and a former
kingdom on the adjacent Asiatic mainland, with a
population of about sixty million, comprise an empire
that has, within half a century, forged to a place among
the world's great powers. In all history there is no
parallel to the rapidity with which the Japanese Empire
has become an arbiter of the destinies of the Far East.
Naturally, Christianity, as a missionary religion, has
tried to place its impress upon Japan. We will consider
this effort in three periods.
Japan's First Contacts With Christianity

Already we have seen (see Chapter XIV) how Xavier
reached Japan, He stayed there but a short time, but
when he left, bound on his fruitless attempt to enter
China, there were other Jesuit missionaries on hand to
take over the work.
—
The Jesuits in Japan. In no field did the Jesuits
achieve a success to equal that which came to their
missions in Japan. It was only a few years before high
officials were accepting baptism, and when one of the
great barons of that feudal period showed his favor for
the new faith accessions to its ranks came by the thou-
sands. The great center of Christian worship was in
Nagasaki, from which city at one time all non-Christians
were banished.
—
The period of persecution. The Jesuit missionaries
213
made the mistake of uniting the fortunes of their re-
work with the political fortunes of certain clans.
ligious
Thus they found themselves mixed up in the internal
poHtics of Japan, a fate that has frequently befallen
Jesuit efforts. And when the lords who had favored the
Christians gave way to other leaders, great resentment
was exhibited against the foreign faith that had espoused
the losing side. As a result Christianity began to be
persecuted. In the early years of the seventeenth cen-
tury the Catholic missions were apparently wiped out.
Martyrs for the faith. — Studying the work of the
Jesuits from this distance, it is easy to point out its
superficial features, and to say that the conversions of
such masses in so short a time could never have produced
inner transformation in every individual. But when we
read of those who chose to be crucified rather than
recant, and massacre at Nagasaki in 1637, when
of the
something twenty thousand fighting men with their
like
women and children were slaughtered, we must admit
that there was enough reality in their faith to command
respect.
The Impenetrable Years

With the beginning of the seventeenth century Japan
shut herself off from the rest of the world for more than
two centuries. Alarmed at the designs of the foreigners
who had reached her shores, she sought security in
isolation.
—
Christians in secret. The edicts that led to the
extermination of the Jesuit missions were but a part of
the effort to cut Japan off from the outside. Merchants
who still sought to penetrate her guards were treated
with as much cruelty as the missionaries. Yet, in the
face of this determination, during years when a man's
THE CROSS IN JAPANESE EMPIRE 215
life was he was simply found in possession of

forfeit if
Christian symbols, some Japanese, cut off from all Chris-

tian instruction, managed to retain a sense of their
allegiance to Christ, for in 1872, when French priests
were allowed to return to Nagasaki, they found more
than eight thousand persons who called themselves
Christians! A more striking testimony to the power of
Christianity to survive, no matter what its difficulties,
could not be asked.

The religions of Japan. —During these years when
there could only be a few Christians living on in secret,
the ancient reUgions held the field in Japan unchallenged.
The dominant philosophy was Confucianism, imported
from China. The religion with the greatest popular
following was Buddhism, which had traveled north from
India by way of China and Korea. "In all probability
Buddhism is more progressive and in a more flourishing
condition in Japan than in any other Buddhist country."^
Shintoism was the original worship that, beginning as a
simple form of nature worship, has developed into what
amounts to the state religion, with the veneration of
ancestors and of the imperial house as its main charac-
teristics. The imperial house is conceived as directly
descended from the divinities who founded Japan (an
event supposed to have taken place less than seven
hundred years before the Christian era) and the essential
,
message of Shintoism has been declared to be, "Fear the

gods and obey the emperor."^ It can be seen how direct
an influence such a religion would have on the develop-
ment of a strongly imperialistic state.
The coming of Perry. —After China had been
• E. D. Soper, The Religions of Mankind, The Abingdon Press, publishers, p. 2I0.
»G. W. Knox, The Development cf Religion in Japan, p. 237. G. P. Putnam's

Sons, publishers. New York and Loudon. Quoted by Soper.
2i6 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
opened up to the West it became inevitable that Japan
should lay aside her isolation. The Island Empire
managed to resist all pressure 1853, when an
until
American squadron, under the command of Commodore
Perry, secured the first treaty, providing for a few com-
mercial rights. Other nations followed the American lead,
and soon Japan was completely open to the Occident.
This proved the impulse needed to precipitate forces that
had been working within the country for years, and after
a few years the old feudal order was displaced in favor
of a centralized government, with the Mikado as supreme
ruler. A wave of patriotic enthusiasm swept the land,
and men of all ranks vied with one another in introducing
reforms that would increase the power of Japan.
Working to Win a World Power

The transformation Japan along Western lines
of
began in the year 1866. Emperor
Six years later the
granted an Act of Toleration, under which Christian
effort has been pushed with great enthusiasm.
—
Japan's place in the sun. While some young
Japanese were sent abroad to fit themselves for future
leadership, foreigners were brought to Japan to start the
changes that were to put that country on a new basis.
"Englishmen were employed to superintend the building
of railways, the introduction of the telegraph, the coast
survey, and the organization of the navy. To Frenchmen
was intrusted largely the work of recasting the laws,
estabhshing the courts, and training the army. Educa-
tional affairs, the postal service, and the improvement of
agriculture were put in the hands of Americans. The
teaching of medicine, the compilation of a commercial
code, and ultimately the training of military officers, was
assigned to Germans. Italians were called as counselors
—
in matters of art."^ When Japanese had been sufficiently

trained they were placed in the positions which these
foreigners had created.
By 1894 Japan felt strong enough to challenge China
for the leadership of the Far East, and amazed the world
by the ease with which she overwhelmed that cumbrous
and still sleeping giant. Robbed of some of the fruits of
her victory by certain European powers, and frightened
by the approach of Russia across Siberia and down into
Korea, she secured a treaty with Great Britain that
guaranteed her against intervention by any third party,
and then attacked Russia. The manner in which she won
that war is familiar to all. As a result Japan entered the
second decade of the present century not only the leader
among the nations of the East, but entitled to that seat
among the Great Powers that she has since then occupied
at international gatherings. So swiftly had she been
transformed by the acceptance and adaptation of certain
elements in Western civilization.
Progress and aspects of the Christian movement.
During all this period of advance Christian missionaries
— Protestant, Catholic, Russian Orthodox—had been at
work. For a time their efforts prospered as they had
never prospered in other non-Christian countries. Then
came a period of reaction, when the Japanese were
naturally asking themselves whether they had not gone
too far in accepting things foreign. Out of that came a
church more self-conscious, and with a larger measure of
self-leadership and government than has yet arisen in any
of the modern non-Christian lands. Practically all the
Protestant churches in Japan are to-day under their own
control, and increasingly the missionaries are serving in
advisory capacities. This is a development that one
>E. C. Moore, op. cil., p. 157.
2i8 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
would expect in a nation with as ardent a nationalistic
spirit as Nippon.
There are more than 113,000 Protestant communicants
in Japan to-day, with 75,000 Roman Catholics and
36,000 members of the Russian Orthodox Church. This
means about one Japanese in every 250 owns allegiance
to some form of Christianity. But the work of Chris-
tianity has only begun in that land. Particularly in the
bringing of Christian conditions to industry and in im-
proving the lot of women there is an immense task
ahead. Japan is fast becoming a manufacturing nation.
In a single year between 19 14 and 191 5 the factory
employees of the country increased from 300,000 to
978,000. Nowthey number more than 2,000,000. And
conditions in most
of the factories are unspeakable.
The common temper of Japan to-day is hardly
spiritual. Most men seem absorbed in the race for
material success, and there are many signs of inner decay.
This condition has had its effect upon the foreign policy
of the empire, which has aroused such misgiving in recent
years. It is the good fortune of Christianity that it can
meet this condition with an effort that is largely Japanese
and there are multiplying signs of a readiness to respond
to a spiritual message coming from the lips of men of
the same race.
Korea, Where the Morning Calm Has Passed

Korea, during the years of her isolation, was known as
"the Land of the Morning Calm." Such a title scarcely
fits the upheaval taking place in that country to-day.
—
The gospel in Korea. The kingdom of Korea, until
recent years a nominal dependency of the empire of
China, for years maintained isolation with as much de-
termination as Japan. And, as in the case of Japan, it
was America that first penetrated the reserve of the

"hermit kingdom." American missionaries led in the
introduction of Christianity, which, after long years of
effort, suddenly, in the early years of this century, began
to attract converts in large numbers. At the present time,
with a population of about 16,000,000, there are about
90,000 Protestant communicants, and many more in
preparatory stages of church membership. It will be
seen that, in comparison to the population, this is the
largest Christian community in any of the modern
non-Christian lands.
—
Korea in the Japanese Empire. Korea was freed
from Chinese suzerainty by the war between China and
Japan in 1894. But the monarchy was so corrupt and
weak that it proved unable to maintain itself. Japan
fought Russia to keep that European power from
swallowing the kingdom, and then, in 1910, formally
annexed it, making it a part of her empire under the
ancient name of Chosen.
Japan can point to an unusual record in developing the
material resources of the country. Unfortunately, the
work has not been done in a way to win the gratitude
of the Koreans. Too many of the Japanese colonial
officials have been educated in ways that make them
strict bureaucrats, but without that imagination or sym-
pathy that makes contact with subject peoples easy. The
Koreans have piled up a bill of complaints that drove
them, in 1919, to attempt to secure their independence
by peaceful agitation. This independence movement has
been sternly repressed, Japanese statistics showing that,
before the end of 191 9, 631 Koreans were killed, nearly
29,000 arrested, 10,500 flogged, and 41 Christian
churches were totally or partially destroyed.
—
The future in Korea. The troubles in Korea have
led to improvement in the Japanese administration.
Revolutionary agitation is still carried on, but there
seems little chance but that the country must work out
its destiny as a part of the Japanese Empire. Some
official suspicion of Christian mission work has shown
itself, but no direct connection with the uprising has been
proven. However, the revolutionary effect of the Chris-

tian message itself must be recognized. There may be a
reaction against Christianity in Korea in the future,
if the present hopes of freedom prove finally empty.
But, for progressive Koreans, Christianity is likely to
remain a compelling faith, until the day comes when they
take over the conduct of the churches, which are still
largely under missionary control. As a Korean-led body,
the Christian Church should go forward to the complete
Christianization of this portion of the Japanese Empire.

1. What can you discover as to the contribution of
American missionaries to the making of modem Japan?

2. What contribution do you think Christianity still
has to make to the development of Japan?

3. If the church with which you are connected has
representatives in Japan, what can you find out about
the size of the work they are carrying on there?
4. Why do you think it natural that the churches in
Japan should have won a large measure of self-gov-
ernment?
5. In what way might the preaching of Christianity
contribute to such an uprising as that for Korean
independence?
CHAPTER XXVI
IN THE DARK CONTINENT
Africa, although one of the continents longest known,
is almost a new problem before spreading Christianity
to-day. Within the memory of living men, vast portions
of its territory have ceased to be labeled "unknown."
"It is difficult to realize that the Egyptians at Dendera
and Thebes, the keen and curious Hallicarnassan who
came to wonder at their greatness, Romans who honored
Hadrian within the temple area at Luxor, Copts who built
Christian churches out of stones taken from memorials
of them all, Arabs in the frenzy of their conquering
passion,from Omar to the Mahdi, all had lived under the
glowing African sun, but the Africa which lay beyond the
Cataracts was as much unknown to them as if it had
been on some far star." ^ Yet to-day this continent is
almost entirely open, and it will not be long before the
dream of traveling by rail from Cape Town to Cairo will
become an actuality.
Christian Beginnings in Africa

Let us not forget that Africa has an ancient Christian
history.
The church No chapter in the
that disappeared. —
record of the church sadder than that which deals
is
with the disappearance of the congregations of North

Africa. After the first century North Africa had been the
seat of a vigorous Christian community. In Alexandria
there developed the most original group of theologians of
'E. C. Moore, op. cil., p. 259.
221
those days. Farther along the coast there was born such
a man as Saint Augustine. The whole region was dom-
inantly Christian. Then came the Vandals, so scourging
the territory in which they settled that its powers of
resistance were lowered. And then came the Moslems,
on their way toward Spain. And North Africa has been
from that day one of the strongholds of Islam.
Catholic missions in by-gone days. But when the —
Portuguese navigators in the age of discovery (see
Chapter XII) began to make the first landings on the
African coast they brought Catholic missionaries in their
wake. But their work, unfortunately, was of the most
superficial kind. Records tell of the conversion of whole
native courts within a few weeks after the arrival of the
missionaries, and the enforced baptism of all the subjects.
In some places the priests made gifts of beads and cloth
to those natives who would receive baptism. Elsewhere,
when the destruction of their idols produced trouble,
they were given images of saints with which to console
themselves. In one kingdom the quarrels between the
—
various Catholic orders Jesuits, Dominicans, Francis-
cans, and Augustinians— became so fierce that they were
all sent back to Portugal in irons.
Christianity and the slave trade.^ The thing that —

the conquering whites really sought in Africa in those
days was the easy wealth that came from the traffic in
slavery. It is, alas, clear that the Christian missionaries
were not always alive to the iniquity of that trade. "A
marble chair used to be shown standing against a pier
in the cathedral at Saint Paul de Loanda from which the
bishops used to give their blessing to the slave ships as
these sailed away with their precious cargo for Portuguese
possessions in the West Indies and Brazil."^ Even as
>E. C. Moore, oi>. cit., p. 254-
IN THE DARK CONTINENT 223
late as 1772 a Protestant missionary, Thomas Thompson,

a graduate of Cambridge University, published a pamph-
let entitled, The African Trade for Negro Slaves Shown to
Be Consistent with the Principles of Humanity and with
the Laws of Revealed Religion. Of course the fact that
such a pamphlet was written shows that by that time
some were questioning the moral basis of the trade. It
is to the honor of later Protestant missions that they led
in the agitation which resulted in the outlawing of the
business.
David Livingstone
The spirit and achievements of the early Protestant
missionaries can largely be summed up in the career of
the most famous of them.
—
A loom-taught missionary. Livingstone began life
under the humblest circumstances, going as a boy of ten
to a place as a "piecer" at the looms of his native Scot-
land. There he struggled for an education, placing his
dearly bought textbooks on the frame beside him as he
worked. On entering young manhood he dedicated him-
self as a medical missionary to work in China, but when
he was finally accepted for service it was to the then

"Dark Continent" that he was sent. To the London
Missionary Society went the honor of commissioning
him, as it had commissioned that other pioneer, Robert
Morrison of China.
—
Explorer and missionary. In Africa Livingstone
began work with Robert Moffatt, one of the great
pioneers, whose daughter he married. Many were the
difficulties placed in his way, mainly by white men who
resented the attempt to uplift the Negroes. But the Scot
would not be discouraged. Leaving his family in Eng-
land he felt free to press into regions hitherto unopened.
Wherever he went he took with him a scientific zeal in
exploration thatmatched his devotion to his rehgious
task. He crossed the continent, after penetrating eleven
thousand miles of jungle where no civilized man had
ever been before. He madevaluable discoveries as to
the great lakes and rivers of Central Africa; and every-
where he left natives touched with gratitude toward
Christianity as it was incarnated in this man who
brought healing and a message of love.
The foe of the slave trade.— Great Britain had
outlawed the slave trade early in the nineteenth century,
and other European nations followed her lead. But in
his explorations through Central Africa Livingstone dis-
covered that the traffic in human Hves continued. In
1858 he cut loose from connection with any missionary
society, and from then until his death, fifteen years later,
he gave himself above all other things to the ending of
the slave trade.
Once he was lost for seven years from the knowledge
of the world, only to be found by the man who was to
become his greatest successor as an explorer, Henry M.
Stanley. During aU the time he was weakened by illness
peculiar to such a climate. But he struggled on.
At last one morning, in 1873, his Negro bearers entered
his quarters at Chitambo's village on the south of Lake
Bangweolo, to find him dead, on his knees. There is
pathos in the fidelity with which his companions, having
buried his heart there in the continent for which he gave
his fife, brought his body back to the coast, and at last
to England, where it lies in Westminster Abbey.
Above his tomb are these words: "For thirty years his
life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the
native races, to explore undiscovered secrets, and abohsh

the desolating slave trade of Central Africa, when, with
his last words, he wrote: 'All I can say in my solitude

is, may
Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one
— —
American, English, Turk who wiU help to heal this
open sore of the world.' " Of such stuff are made the
men who to this day lead in the spread of Christ's
kingdom.
A Missionary Problem
This great continent, so recently explored, must be

considered still rather as a problem for Christianity than
an example of its power.

—
Africa in white hands. As Livingstone and others
opened up the resources of the continent, the nations of
Europe rushed to possess them. The Dutch had made the
first landing in the south. The English dreamed of a Hne
of colonies that should extend from tip to tip. The

Germans sought to make up for their lack of colonies in
other parts of the world by securing vast tracts here.
The French, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Belgians all
came in.
Some of this colonial development, particularly that
carried on by the British, has been fairly enlightened.
But for the most part the white man's first aim has been
the possession of gold, diamonds, rubber, or ivory rather
than the good of the natives.
To-day there remain in aU Africa only two states, the
republic of Liberia and the kingdom of Abyssinia, that
are not possessions or dependencies of European nations.
The black man has practically no voice in the control of
his own political destinies.
Effect of the West. —
While the debased character of
lifeunder the old conditions, which still continue in some
inaccessible parts of Central Africa, must be remembered,
the white man cannot be proud of his record as a
"civilizer." Too frequently, when he has not stolen the
Negro outright, he has pressed him into forms of labor
that have been little better than slavery.
Records of brutaUty in connection with various indus-
trial exploitations, such as disgraced the rule of King
Leopold of Belgium in the Congo, have been frequent in
most of the colonies. The white man's liquor, his com-
merciahzed vice, his most degrading forms of self-
indulgence have been pushed where his religion has hardly
penetrated. A million and a half gallons of rum have
been sent in a single year from Boston to West Africa.
And some, marking the devastating effects of these
importations on the morals and health of the Negroes,
have asked whether Africa would not have been better
off if the white man had never come there.
It is true that the missions have hardly been able
to offset the evils done by unscrupulous adventurers
from so-called Christian lands, let alone win the continent
to the worship of their Lord. Africa illustrates the
power of wrong in Christian lands to hinder Christi-
anity's spread elsewhere.
The Moslem advance. —With the loss of power felt
because of the necessity for combating European evils,

the missionaries now find themselves facing an awakened
Mohammedanism. For with the passing of pohtical
authority (see Chapter XXV) there has come to Islam a
quickened religious interest. From the Moslem cities of
North Africa as a base, traders have spread down
through the tribes of Central Africa, preaching the faith
of the prophet as they have traveled.
Every Mohammedan is a missionary. The feeble at-
tempts to convert the Mohammedans of North Africa to
Christianity have made almost no impression, but the
advance of Islam among the tribes of the interior of the
continent is so rapid that it constitutes one of the greatest

challenges to Christianity in the world to-day.
What does the future hold? —Many elements com-
bine to make the future of Christianity's enterprise in
Africa difficult to determine. There are beginnings of
self-assertion among the Negroes, such as led to the Pan-
African Congress that met recently in London, Brussels,
and and resolved that Africa must be protected
Paris,
from further white encroachments. There are signs that
all the states with colonies in Africa must take their
responsibihties toward the welfare of their native sub-

jects more seriously. There are vast problems of the
interrelations of whites and blacks, in such sections as
South Africa, that are not different from the similar
problems in America's South. There is the menace of the
Moslem advance, and the almost untouched problem of
Mohammedanism along the Mediterranean. And then
there are the tribes to be raised, by education and the
introduction of fitting forms of industry, to a standard of
life in which Christianity can have some chance to
function effectively.
It is anything but an easy outlook. The days ahead of
the Christian workers look almost as dark as the conti-
nent once looked in the geographies. But the African, in
many individual instances, has proved his capacity for
advance. We look with confidence to the coming of a
time when all forces shall combine to make him a free,
self-respecting Christian within a land he himself
controls.

1. Why have European nations been so anxious to
stake out colonies in Africa?

2. Tell the story of the republic of Liberia.
3. Locate on the map the scene of Livingstone's prin-
cipal labors in Africa.
4. Give in more detail the story of the Stanley expedi-
tion to find Livingstone.
5. What problem is given Christianity by the develop-
ment of the diamond and gold mines South Africa?
of
6. Why has Islam been able to advance so rapidly in
Central Africa?
CHAPTER XXVII
RELIGION IN LATIN-AMERICA
Increasingly Latin-America, and particularly that
portion of it comprising the South American continent, is
attracting the attention of the world. The only continent

untouched by the World War, with natural resources
still undeveloped that promise more wealth than is to be
found in any other part of the globe, South America may

soon engage the attention of men as North America has
already done.
When we speak of Latin-America we have in mind the
group of republics lying south of the Rio Grande Mexico,
:
Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua,

Panama, Cuba, Haiti, San Domingo, Venezuela, Brazil,
Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru,
Ecuador, and Colombia. Here is an area almost three
times as large as that of the United States, with a
population of eighty-five million.
Latin-America presents one of the most puzzling con-
ditions that Christianity faces in aU the world. We can
only seek to suggest some of its features in such a chapter
as this.
The Spanish Conquests

We have seen how the Spaniards came into the New
World, blessed with a dispensation from the Pope giving
it all into their keeping. We have followed their efforts
to establish themselves in North America, and to some
extent, in South America as well (see Chapter XVIII).
In the footsteps of Pizarro. —The interest in the
229
success of the Catholic missionaries that marked the
advance of Cortez into Mexico was also characteristic of
the conquistadores who overthrew the native states in
South America. When Pizarro conquered Peru he turned
the palace of the Incas over to the priests for use as a
cathedral, and everywhere Catholicism was quick to set
up its altars in the place of the discredited native deities.
The Spaniards spread rapidly down the western coast of
the continent, then crossed the Andes and found them-
selves on the fertile plains of what is now the Argentine
Republic. The Portuguese came first to the settlement of
Brazil, but they were as careful to plant CathoHcism as
the Spaniards. By the time that South America had
come under the rule of the white man Catholic Chris-
tianity had been estabhshed in every part of the conti-
nent.
An ill-fated colony. —Protestantism made just one
effort of any consequence to enter South America in those
early days, and that came to nothing. During the years
when the French Protestants were fighting for their lives,
their great leader,Admiral Coligny, determined to send
a colony of Huguenots to the New World, where they
might prepare a haven and a place of opportunity for
others who might wish to escape from the persecutions of
Europe. In the middle of the sixteenth century, ahnost
seventy years before the Pilgrims carried through to
success their adventure in New England, a colony went
out to Brazil. Unfortunately, the man to whom CoHgny
had intrusted the leadership proved unworthy. Some of
the Huguenots were killed, some escaped into the forests
where they lived with the Indians, a few made their way
back to France in time to undergo the horrors of the
massacre of Saint Bartholomew in which their patron
perished.
RELIGION IN LATIN-AMERICA 231
The revolt —
from Spain and Portugal. The colonial
records of Spain and Portugal were no better in Latin-
America than in other parts of the world. However, the
natives were reduced to such a pitiable state, and the
colonists seemed so closely tied to their mother countries,
that it was not until after the opening of the nineteenth
century that any attempt was made to win freedom.
Then, when the Napoleonic wars had proven the weak-
ness of Spain and Portugal in Europe, Simon Bolivar set
afoot that long period of fighting that really did not close
until, in 1898, the defeat of Spain by the United States
freed the last Spanish possessions in the Caribbean.
Most of the countries thus liberated became at once re-
publics, at least in name. Mexico held to a form of
monarchy until 1867, while Brazil kept its emperor until
1889. Political conditions have, however, been notori-
ously unstable, particularly in the smaller countries.
The Religious Occupation

Nominally, South America is a Christian continent.
Except in the deep interior it would be hard to find those
who did not claim to be Christians. But in too many
cases the Christianity thus espoused bears little resem-
blance to that taught in the Bible.
A mixture of races.—There are many races mingled
in Latin-America. An estimate made since the close of
the World War placed the number of whites at 18,000,-
000, of Indians at 20,000,000, of Negroes at 6,000,000, of
mixed white and Indian at 32,000,000, of mixed white
and Negro at 8,000,000, of mixed Negro and Indian at
700,000, with 300,000 others.
The whites are, inmany cases, immigrants. Immigra-
tion from southern Europe and Germany has been heavy,
as is seen in Argentina, where more than half the popula-
tion are immigrants or the children of those who have
come There have even
to the country within fifty years.
been some attempts to encourage immigration from Japan.
Some of the whites are very wealthy, making possible
great cities with a high standard of culture. It is often
claimed that Buenos Ayres is the most expensive city in
the world in which to live. But if a tenth of the popula-
tion can afford to live in luxury, the rest is in poverty.
There is almost no middle class.
Work of the Catholic Church. With Catholicism —
everywhere recognized as the favored form of worship,
the ministry of the church has been, in recent years,
more and more rejected by the educated, and has tended
to play upon the superstitions and credulities of the
ignorant. We would not overlook the fine services
rendered by many devoted priests, especially in the
decades immediately following the Spanish conquests.
"Whatever may be thought of the attention given to
ringing of bells and swinging of censers, there is no ques-
tion that the work hundreds of heroic, self-sacrificing
of
missionaries, who taught the wickedness of cannibahsm,
of polygamy, of drunkenness, of idleness, with instruction
of the men in the tillage of the land and of the women
in spinning and weaving, was a great uplift to a heathen
people."^
in the course of time the CathoUc Church came to
But
from the lack of incentive such as the presence of
sufifer
other forms of worship would supply. Until recently

Protestantism has been outlawed in most of South
America, the battle for religious liberty having been won
in Peru only five years ago. So the priests have too often
been content to allow their charges to go on in ignorance,
self-indulgence, vice, placing only a thin veneer of
*L. M. Hodgkins. op. cit., p. i68.
Christian forms over the degradation of their old habits.

The capitals of Latin-America are studded with great
cathedrals, but it cannot be said that those lands are
producing even the type of piety that may be found in
other CathoKc lands to-day.
Protestant —
beginnings. Religious toleration has
come so recentlyand South America has been recognized
as missionary territory so short a time, that the Prot-
estant forces have scarcely begun their work on that
continent. Of course, if only the spiritual needs of the
Indians who have not been reached by the Catholic
Church were taken into account, there would be a wide
field of activity. But it is realized that the nominal
adherence of vast masses can hardly be reckoned as the
triumph of Christianity in any vital form.
Most of the Protestant work so far has centered about
education, in which Latin-America is notably backward.
Children frequently come from Catholic homes to schools
conducted by evangelical missions, and in almost every
country there is an eager desire, frequently officially
expressed by the governments, for the expansion of this
sort of work. Government subsidies to these Protestant
schools are frequent.
The work of preaching has just begun. It is felt that
theremust be a vast amount of preparation, such as is
supphed by the schools and by the distribution of evan-
gelical literature, before Latin -Americans will be ready
to listen, in large numbers, to Protestant preaching. It
isnot that Protestantism fears Catholic opposition, but
that there is everywhere the apathy of the educated to
overcome. Before advance is possible men of this class,
who have turned from the superficiality of the old
worship, must be convinced that there is a sound basis
of reason as well as spiritual fervor for the new message.
The Present Situation

What, then, does Christianity face in Latin-America?
Undeveloped wealth. —
More wealth is Hkely to be
taken from Latin-America in the next two centuries than
from any other part of the globe. Many countries there
have increased their foreign trade a hundred per cent
during the last five years. Others are still virtually un-
touched by modern commerce and industry. There is
more fertile land to be put under the plow here than
anywhere else. "All the population of the world could
find place here and be only one third as crowded as is the
population of Porto Rico." The states with great indus-
trial developments, seeking raw materials, are bound to
look to South America, and immigration from the over-
crowded and war-taxed states of Europe is also sure to
it be forbidden.
increase, unless Already statesmen are
speaking of South America as "the continent of the
twenty-first century."
The decay of faith. — It is disquieting to know that
Latin-America is entering these days of great importance
in the world's life without an adequate foundation of
faith. Those who are anxious that the rule of Christ
should circle the earth cannot but be saddened by the
report of the late Viscount Bryce: "Both the intellectual
life and the ethical standards of conduct of these coun-
tries seem to be entirely divorced from rehgion. . . .
Men upper or educated class appear wholly in-

of the
different to theology and to Christian worship. It has
no interest for them. They are seldom actively hostile
to Christianity, much less offensive in what they say
about it, but they think it does not concern them, and
may be women and peasants.
left to The ministers
. . .
of religion had ceased not only to rouse the soul, but to

supply a pattern for conduct. There were always some

admirable men to be found among them, some prelates
models of piety and virtue, some friars devoted mis-
sionaries and humanely zealous in their efforts to protect
the Indians. Still the church as a whole had lost its hold
on the conscience and thought of the best spirits, and that
hold it has never regained. ... In the more advanced
parts of South America it [the church] seems to be re-
garded merely as a harmless Old- World affair which
belongs to a past order of things just as much as does the
rule of Spain, but which may, so long as it does not
interfere with politics, be treated with the respect which
its antiquity commands. This absence of a religious
. . .
foundation for thought and conduct is a grave mis-

fortune for Latin- America,"^
—
The Christian program. What, in such circum-
stances, must the program be for Christian effort? Surely
the present activity points the way. Schools must be
established and literature produced and distributed
until the minds of all men are aroused to the presence
of new and vital mental forces. Discussion must be
fostered. Christianity must be vindicated, as against
materialism and as against formaUsm. More than all
else, the attempt must be to awaken the Catholic Church
to a sense of its shortcomings and responsibility, so that

it shall rouse itself to the effort to make Latin-America
Christian in fact as well as in name. It is a hard task,

but one not impossible of performance.

I. Compare Latin-America in size, population, and
material resources with North America.
1 James Bryce, South America, The Macmillan Company, publishers, pp. 582, 583.
2. How
do the political institutions of the two con-
tinentscompare?
3. Give a sketch of the career of Simon Bolivar.
4. Do you believe the establishment of schools is the
proper method by which to seek to vitalize Christianity
in Latin-America? Why?
5. Why do you consider the reform
of the present
Christianity in Latin-America important to the rest of
the world?
6. Give a description of any Latin-American Chris-
tiansyou have met, or of any Christian work in Latin-
America of which you have read.
CHAPTER XXVIII
OTHER FIELDS FOR CHRISTIANITY'S
ADVANCE
In the six preceding chapters we have dealt with
Christianity's spread through some of the larger divi-
sions of our modern world. It is impossible, because of
our limitations of space, to show how this same advance
has been going on in smaller portions of the earth. In
this chapter we can only try to sketch the manner in
which servants of Christ have taken his message wher-
ever civilization has gone.
In the Wake of Captain Cook

In the closing half of the eighteenth century there
sailed about the Pacific Ocean that Captain James
Cook whose discoveries added so greatly to the territory
of the British Empire, and whose account of his voyages
awoke the missionary ardor within William Carey.
—
The rediscovery of Australia. Captain Cook had
been preceded in the southern Pacific by the Spanish and
Dutch, but their original discoveries led to no coloniza-
tion or other development. When, therefore, the Enghsh
navigator claimed the continent, no counterclaims were
presented.
English colonists were sent out, and some spots on the
coast were used as penal colonies. Efforts were soon
made to reach the natives with the gospel, but without
much success. As the foreigners came in, the natives
withdrew to the bush, as the wilderness that still covers
much of the continent is called.
Such attempted to live in contact
of the aborigines as
with the EngHsh proved unable to withstand the tempta-
tions of Western civilization and soon died. The Bush-
men who remain, inthe interior, are practically un-
touched by Christianity. But Australia has become, like
the North American continent, a white man's land.
Every effort is being made to keep it that.
Among the Maoris. —In New Zealand, which Cap-
tain Cook rediscovered before he reached Australia, the
story of Christianity's attempt to reach the native
Maoris was in striking contrast to the attempt in the
larger island. Work begun early in the nineteenth cen-
tury by English clergymen evoked from the first a re-
markable response. The Maoris proved to have mental
and moral capacity to stand up under the strain of life
introduced by the whites, and the estabHshment of
schools soon provided native preachers and teachers who
gathered converts in large numbers.
The eagerness of the white man for land, and the
natural reluctance of the native to surrender his birth-
right, led to the Maori wars of the middle of the century,
and almost ruined the work of the missionaries. Now
the natives are dying out, and New Zealand is as much
a white man's land as Australia. It is said that about
half of such Maoris as remain are Christians.
—
The gospel in the South Seas. A volume could be
written about the way in which Christianity has been
taken to the peoples of the South Sea Islands, and then
the tale would be only half told. There are something
like 1,500 of these islands scattered about the southern
Pacific, and to most of them, in some way or other, the
gospel has gone. Unfortunately, other things have gone
after or before it, and the result to-day, in too many cases,
is a perishing population. But some of the most romantic
OTHER FIELDS FOR ADVANCE 239
who were the first

stories in Christian history tell of those
messengers of the cross in the islands of the South Seas.
There was, for example, John Coleridge Patteson, a
graduate of Cambridge University and a relative of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who went first to New Zealand,
and later was made bishop of the Melanesian Islands.
Bishop Patteson made his headquarters in the New
Hebrides, and from thence reached his scattered diocese
by sailing about in his vessel, the Southern Cross.
Several of the island languages were reduced to writing
by him, and the Bible made available to the natives.
Responsibility for his martyr death must be laid upon
the unscrupulous whites who have cursed the South Seas
rather than upon the natives.
Approaching one of the islands one day he was mistaken
for one of the white kidnappers of native laborers, who
had been impersonating missionaries in order to come
within reach of their prey. In a rage, the bishop was
killed. Sorrow quickly followed when the natives dis-
covered the true identity of their victim. The bishop's
body was placed in a canoe covered with palm-fiber
matting, a palm branch in his hand, and was set adrift
to be found far out at sea. What an ending for the career
of an apostle to the islands of the sea!
Tales of similar devotion could be told of John
Williams, who, after years of remarkable success in vari-
ous parts of the South Seas, was killed as he landed on
one of the islands of the New Hebrides, or of John G.
Paton, the apostle to the same group in which Williams
met his death. Many other consecrated missionaries
worked along with these leaders, and the transformation
that they wrought, bringing whole islands from cannibal-
ism to an ordered and Christian life, has scarcely been
equaled in all the history of the church.
The trouble has been that, while the missionaries have
gone with their help, other white men have pressed in
with vice in most revolting forms. The people of the
islands have generally fallen easy prey to these human
vultures, for they have not, in their tropical cUmate,
learned the necessity for hard work. In summing up the
career of Paton, for instance, one writer has said: "One
lifetime had sufficed to see his islanders raised from
primitive savagery to the virtues of children in a devout
home and then again demoraUzed and corrupted by the
contagion of all the vices and crimes wherein civiKzed
man so far outdoes the barbarian and descends below
"^
the beast.
As a result, the native population is disappearing in
most of theSouth Seas. The only outstanding exception
is in the Fiji Islands, where more than half the native
population are members of the British Wesleyan Church,

and where the birth rate is rising.
America's Island Responsibilities

Just before the beginning of the present century the
United States of America assumed responsibility for the
welfare of important island groups in the Pacific. In both
the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines there are
challenging religious problems.
The evangelization of Hawaii. — Captain Cook fin-
ished his career as the discoverer of the Sandwich Islands,

the largest of which is Hawaii. For years after their first
contact with the whites the native sovereigns tried to
transform their governments so that they might retain
control. But the number of foreigners steadily grew,
while the number of pure-blooded natives diminished,
until at last the queen gave up the struggle, a temporary
»E. C. Moore, op. cit., p. 311.

republic was established with a white as president, and

finally the Territory of Hawaii became a part of the
United States.
The missionary work in the Hawaiian Islands was,
from the beginning, very successful. Although the battle
with white vices had to be fought here as elsewhere, the
church proved strong enough to survive, and since the
middle of the last century the Christian work in the
islands has been under local direction, and has even sent
missionaries to other parts of the Pacific. To-day Hawaii
is a sort of crossroads for that ocean, and includes in its
inhabitants as strange an intermingHng of races as this

world ever knew. The presence of multitudes of Japanese
and Chinese, as well as un evangelized descendants of
some of the native tribes, still constitutes a missionary
problem.
A new day in the Philippines. — From the days of
Magellan to those of Dewey the Philippine Islands were
Spanish possessions. Spanish colonial administration was
no m.ore successful in the Far Pacific than in Latin-
America, and the natives grew more and more restless.
Civil war had been in progress for years when the United
States took over the islands, pledging independence when
the inhabitants showed themselves ready to carry on a
modern form of government.
The American administration in the Philippines has,
on the whole, proved one of the most successful of all
attempts at colonial government. Popular education has
been fostered by the United States to such a degree that
the islands, hopelessly illiterate twenty-five years ago,
now rank nextto Japan in the Far East. The civil service
has been opened so rapidly to natives that an over-
whelming majority of the posts in the administrative,
legislative, and judicial branches, including the head-
ships of departments, are now held by Filipinos. The
islands are attaining greater wealth with every year, and
the day of independence seems not far off.
The effect of such a pohtical atmosphere upon the

church has been remarkable. When the Spaniards con-
trolled the islands the people in the civilized portions
were nominally all Cathohc Christians. It was a nominal
Christianity of a low order,and had moved some zealous
souls to found an independent Filipino church that
claimed three million members. Under American rule
the Protestant churches have entered, and are growing
at a more rapid rate than in any other part of the world.
Where there were no Protestant Christians twenty-five
years ago, to-day there are a hundred thousand, with
another half million in the Protestant constituency.
Many of these churches are self-supporting. And the
spiritual life of the Catholic Church has been greatly
purified.
Lands Still to be Reached

Great is the challenge set before Christianity in still
other parts of the East.

—
The riches of Malaysia. Take, for example, that
group of islands stretching off from Singapore toward
Australasia. Under British and Dutch rule, it holds out
hope of easy wealth to any who will substitute energy for
the indolence of its Malay inhabitants. Three hundred
thousand Chinese a year are rushing into this garden of
the East, and great numbers from India as well. Yet
the greater part of Sumatra, Borneo, New Guinea, as
well as hundreds of smaller islands, are without the circle
of Christian influence.
Arabia and Persia. —The homeland of Islam has been
practically closed to Christianity until now. Only a
very little Christian work has been attempted in Persia.
But now both Arabia and Persia find themselves in the

full tide of international life, and both should soon be the
scene of great Christian effort. If that effort is to
succeed care must be taken that the relations of the so-

called Christian powers with these states do not belie all
the words of the missionaries.
—
Afghanistan and Tibet. A hundred years ago there
were vast stretches of the earth which no Christian
agent could enter save at imminent peril of his Hfe. To-
day those restricted areas have been wiped out until they
practically include no more than Afghanistan and Tibet,
those two lands on the roof of Asia. In Afghanistan no
white men are allowed, and so fierce are those warriors
who have often poured down through the famed Kyber
Pass to menace northern India that it will probably be a
long time before Christian missionaries of any other race
can enter. Tibet, the land of Lamaism, a corrupt form
of Buddhism, was cut off from all the rest of the world
until avery few years ago. Christianity is still under the
interdict there, but intrepid missionaries are already
pressing in on the heels of the explorers.

1. Give an outline of the voyages of Captain Cook.
2. Tell in more detail the story of the life of John G.
Paton.
3. What can you discover concerning the Wesleyan
Church in Fiji?
4. What part did the sacred cities of Islam play in
the World War?
5. Why do the results of that war make Arabia and
Persia more accessible to Christian missions?
6. What can you find out about the religion of Tibet?
CHAPTER XXIX
THE AMERICAN CHURCHES
We have already seen how, at the close of the Revolu-
tionary War, the religious life of America was at a low
ebb. Then we have seen how the ardent labors of pioneer
preachers, known as circuit-riders, led in an awakening
that made rehgion one of the potent factors in the life
of the youngnation. We are familiar with the social and
politicaldevelopment that pushed out the frontiers until
the republic stretched from Atlantic to Pacific, growing
to such strength that it has become an acknowledged
leader among all nations. With this there has gone a
development of the Christian churches until they num-
ber in their constituency far more than half the popula-
tion and exert a powerful influence, not only in the
domestic affairs of the United States, but in such mis-
sionary efforts as we have studied in other lands as well.
Leading Christian Communions

We have space only to mention a few of the denom-
inations in the United States. There are more than two
hundred different religious bodies in America, but many
of these represent minor divisions within the principal
groups.
The Methodists. —As we know, the Methodists were
formally organized as a church separated from their
founder, John Wesley, as the Revolutionary War was
closing.Their growth was phenomenal. Revivals marked
the path of their preachers, who did not stay long in any
244
THE AMERICAN CHURCHES 245
pulpit, but "itinerated" from place to place. By dividing

up all their stations into Conferences, and giving
authority to their bishops to fill all pulpits at the annual
sessions of these bodies, the Methodists provided a sys-
tem whereby none of their churches were without pastors
and none of their pastors without churches. There have
been various branchings off from the original Methodist
Episcopal Church, the most important being the breach
over slavery that, fifteen years before the Civil War,
led to the estabhshment of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. During all these years the Methodists
have been successful in reaching the masses, and to-day
they number more than seven million members. They
are also taking a foremost place in the support of
education and in missionary enterprises.
The Baptists.—About equal in members among the
Protestant bodies are the Baptists, of whom there are
now thirteen branches. The first Baptist congregations
were planted in New England soon after the Puritans
sought those coasts, and gradually spread toward the
south. In organization each Baptist church is a law to
itself, and none are supposed to be bound by any creed.
For years the Baptist ministry was noted more for its
zeal than its learning, but the denomination now stands
in the front rank in promoting education and is supply-
ing the Christian churches of America with many leaders
of thought. Baptism by immersion remains a character-
istic, but there is increasing liberality in the relations of
Baptists with Christians who practice other forms of
baptism.
The Presbyterians.^ —The immigration that came
to America from Scotland and the north of Ireland pro-
vided the backbone for the strong Presbyterian bodies,
of which there are twelve. The Presbyterians hold that
the New Testament provides for only one order in the
ministry, the presbyters, to whom the government of the
churches is intrusted. With them are associated the
elders of the churches. Each congregation meets as a
"session," and elects an elder who, with the minister,
represents it in the "presbytery," which includes the
representatives of a given district. Above the presbytery
is the "synod," which generally is formed on State lines,
and above all, exercising legislative and judicial powers,
is the "general assembly," meeting every year. The
Presbyterians have, from the beginning, championed the
cause of an educated ministry, and have exerted a pro-
found influence in molding the thought and guiding the
efforts of American Protestantism.
The Lutherans. —There are sixteen Lutheran bodies
in the United States, the spiritual descendants of those
who have come from Germany and Scandinavia to the
new world. Much of the worship in Lutheran churches,
until very recently, has been conducted in German.
There is a large element of ritualism in Lutheran worship,
and only a little mingling with other Protestant forces.
The Episcopalians.— It was some time after the
Revolution before the congregations that had been mem-
bers of the Church of England were able to reconstitute
themselves as the Protestant Episcopal Church. Finally
arrangements were made whereby American bishops
were ordained in England, and the church has developed
rapidly since. There are various groups within the
Episcopalian body, one, known as the High Church,
tending toward a strict rituahsm, one, known as the
Broad Church, seeking to emphasize points of agreement
with all schools of thought, and one, known as the Low
Church, with a minimum of liturgy in worship. One
group, rejecting the theory of an unbroken line of ordi-
nations for the bishops from the days of the apostles,

broke away to form the Reformed Episcopal Church.
Although the Episcopalians have included many of
wealth and high social station within their ranks, they
have also produced many leaders in the effort to secure
better social and economic conditions in American Hfe.
The Congregationalists.— The Mayflower brought
Congregationahsm to New England, where it has re-
mained the leading form of worship through the years.
From it there grew the Unitarian school of thought that
has exerted such an influence in certain quarters. But
by far the larger part of Congregationahsm, somewhat
under the influence of Horace Bushnell, stood for the
historic form of Christian beHef. In theory, each Con-
gregational church is independent, and the ministers only
the chosen leaders of the congregation. From the be-
ginning, the Congregationalists have stood for the highest
Their contribution to the cause
possible type of culture.
through their American Board of
of foreign missions,
Commissioners for Foreign Missions, has been very
large.
The Disciples. —No body in America has had a more
remarkable growth than the Disciples of Christ, or, as
they are sometimes known, the Christian Church.
Founded by Thomas Campbell, a Presbyterian mmister
from Scotland, and pushed most vigorously toward their
distinct entity by Alexander Campbell, the founder's son,
this group, after periods of fellowship with Presbyterians
and Baptists, finally became a separate denomination.
The church has had two aims, the one to secure a
restoration of primitive Christianity, and the other to
unify the churches. pushed education, and is
It has
interested in missions on a large scale.
The CathoUcs. —
There were few members of the
Roman Catholic Church in America when independence
came, but the rush of immigration that featured the
development of the country brought with it thousands
of children of this faith. Until 1908 the United States
was regarded as missionary territory, but since then has
been on a plane of equality with the churches of Europe
in the councils of the Roman Church, At the present
time there are two cardinals heading a body that is
claimed to contain almost sixteen million adherents. The
Catholic investments in churches, hospitals, orphanages,
schools and other institutions are enormous. There are
also representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church to
the number of about a quarter of a million.
The Rediscovery of Young Life

No more significant fact is to be found in Protestant
history during the last few decades than the attempt to
give a larger place to the training of young Ufe. Christian
nurture is now accepted by most churches as the most
important feature of their work.

—
The church school. Instruction of children began
in England in 1780 in the classes gathered by Robert
Raikes as a result of the Methodist awakening. Before
long, that which originally included instruction in all
elementary subjects narrowed to instruction in the con-
tents of the Bible, generally conducted on Sunday by
volunteer teachers. The Sunday school has had a won-
derful development in aU Protestant lands, and is now
growing rapidly in mission lands. A convention of the
World's Sunday School Association was recently held in
Tokyo, Japan. The ideals of these schools have developed
with the years, and to-day much care is given by expert
leaders to the preparation of courses that shall not only
instruct in Christian truth but induct into Christian

service.
The young people's societies. —During the closing
years of the last century there arose a group of societies,
planned to give young Christians a chance to express their
religious life in testimony and service. The most popular
of these have been the United Society of Christian
Endeavor, the Epworth League, the Luther League, and
the Baptist Young People's Union.
Other agencies in great number have also been em-
ployed to win for the young a larger place in the Protes-
tant churches. Clubs for boys and girls, troops of Boy
Scouts and Girl Guides, camps, daily vacation Bible
—
schools these are but a few in a list almost endless.
Social Implications of the Gospel
A great Scotchman, Henry Drummond, who combined

a passion as an evangelist with a zeal as a scientist, once
warned the churches that they should stop talking about
saving souls and begin to talk about saving men. What
he said pointed the way for one of the great develop-
ments of church thought and activity during recent
years.
—
Charity and organized philanthropy. The first rec-
ognition by the churches of social wrongs in the Ameri-
can community led to a great increase in the number of
organized philanthropies. There were the efiforts to aid
the Negroes freed following the war between the States;
to aid the Indians, who had too often been defrauded by
land-hungry whites; to aid the immigrants, crowded into
the tenement sections of the cities. Social settlements
and charity organizations did much to relieve suffering
and offer to the poor a chance for advancement.
—
The struggle for social justice. It was not long,
however, before the Christian conscience saw that it was
not enough to alleviate social suffering after it had
occurred, but that some effort should be made to get at
the root causes of such troubles and eliminate them. So,
in constantly increasing power. Christians have been
trying to make clear the cause of social disorders and
secure conditions of labor and life that will offer happi-
ness and opportunity to every inhabitant of the country.
Thus it comes that where, two hundred years ago,
churches gave their attention to the formulation of creeds
of theology, to-day the Protestant churches that are
grouped in the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in
America have adopted what is called a Social Creed,
caUing for far-reaching reforms in social and industrial
Kfe.
—
Foreign missions. One other expression of this same
growing sense of social responsibility is the increasing
interest in foreign missions. In all the efforts to take the
gospel of Jesus Christ to other lands, such as we have
surveyed in previous chapters, a large part has been
taken by the churches of America. There are to-day
about eleven thousand Protestant missionaries from the
United States at work in other lands. And this mis-
sionary enterprise seeks to improve the mental and social
status of those whom it touches, as well as to give them
a better spiritual outlook.
1. Give a complete sketch of the history of the denom-

ination with which you are connected.
2. What are its methods of church government?
3. Outline briefly its educational interests in America.
4. What part is it taking in the foreign missionary

enterprise ?
5. Give an outline of the organization of the Sunday
school of which you are a member.
6. Select three important paragraphs from the Social
Creed of the Churches, and tell why you think them

important.
CHAPTER XXX
MODERN CATHOLICISM
As we have traced the history of the Roman Catholic
Church from the days of Constantine we cannot but have
felt the power of such a body. It is the boast of that
church that it has never changed in all the centuries, but
a careful examination proves that it has changed greatly,
both in the part it has played in society and in its
doctrine.
In this chapter we shall attempt to summarize what
has happened within the last few centuries to make the
Roman CathoHc Church what we see it to be to-day. In
general, we shall see that between the time of the
Reformation and the present there has been a gradual
decrease in the political power of Catholicism, and a
growth in its religious power.
The Decay of the Catholic Realms
We recall that, just before the Reformation, the Pope

thought he possessed temporal power sufficient to make
it possible for him to divide all the new discoveries be-
tween Spain and Portugal. What a change the years
have brought!
The Pope's loss of temporal authority. Strongly as —
the Catholic Church rebounded from the shock of the
Protestant Reformation, it proved weak before the rise
of that spirit of doubt that marked Europe during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With the out-
break of the French Revolution the church was swept out
252
MODERN CATHOLICISM 253
of existence in one of its strongholds. When Napoleon

restored order and made empire the mightiest power
his
on the continent, he recognized Catholicism as the
religion of the majority of his subjects only at the price
of a complete political submission by the Pope. Napoleon
did not hesitate to hold the Pope as a prisoner, and to
confiscate the papal states in Italy.
After the downfall of Napoleon the Popes came back
to a brief authority, but this could not persist in the face
of the rise of democratic ideas that broke out again in
Europe in the middle of the last century. In Italy this
movement kept at work until, by 1870, the country was
entirely freed from outside domination, the various states
united in one kingdom, and the Pope a self-made
prisoner within the Vatican palace in Rome. All the
papal states, with the exception of the ground included
in the Vatican and Saint Peter's Church, together with
another church and a castle just outside Rome, have been
taken from the rule of the Pope.
—
Catholic countries lose power. While the papacy
itself has been declining in temporal authority, the states
upon which it has relied most strongly for support have

been shpping to the rear in the family of nations. Spain
and Portugal, once so strong, are now almost negligible
as international factors. Austria, for years the center of
the Holy Roman Empire and chief support of the Pope,
is, as a result of the World War, reduced to a petty state.
The governments of France and Italy have no official

connection whatever with the Catholic Church. In fact,
the record of the last century seems to be that if a
country has remained resolutely Catholic it has lost

political power, and if it has held or gained political
power its leaders have increasingly cut loose from
Catholicism. An interesting sidelight on this tendency
was thrown when Bismarck, striving to make a great
empire of Germany, did all in his power to circumscribe
the strength of the CathoUcism remaining in south
Germany.
The present situation. —To-day, therefore, we see
the states in which CathoHcism is legally established as
the national religion of diminishing importance in the
world, and the Pope shorn of all significance as a tem-
poral ruler. It is possible that the Italian government, in
an one disturbing element from its
effort to eliminate
internal situation, may
effect some compromise whereby
a slight measure of temporal authority may be restored
to the Pope. But it seems certain that the day in which
the Vatican might exercise great temporal power is gone.
The Growth of the Papal Power

But while the Pope has been losing authority of one
kind, he has been gaining power in another, and perhaps
more important, realm. The who acknowledge
millions
the religious rule of the bishop of Rome now accord him
a spiritual authority beyond that claimed even in the
Middle Ages.
Development of Catholic doctrine. — In the midst
of the democratic uprisings of the nineteenth century the
Pope came to feel that the fortunes of a church that
claimed to be "always without change" depended upon a
strongly conservative policy. Hence, about the middle of
the century, the Pope did what no previous occupant of
the throne of Saint Peter had ever dared to do. He
formulated a doctrine as a dogma of the church which
could not be doubted without peril to the soul. Always
in the past the formulation of such doctrines had been in
the hands of church councils, where leaders of thought
from all quarters could express their opinions. But now
the Pope claimed authority to do this. And the church

acknowledged the validity of his act!
Less than twenty years later, at the very time Garibaldi
and Cavour were eliminating the Pope as a civil ruler in
Italy, a church council was called, and at this the final
step toward establishing the spiritual supremacy of the
pontiff was taken. It was voted that whenever the Pope
speaks on a matter of faith or morals his words are
infallible! There was some protest, but not sufficient to
shake the readiness of the church as a whole to accept the
doctrine. Upon it rests the spiritual dictatorship of the
Pope over millions to-day.
Increase in Catholic populations. — In the mean-
time, the Catholic population of the world has grown. In
such a country as the United States, where the Cathohc
element was insignificant at the formation of the re-
public, immigration has increased it to the point where it
equals a seventh of the population. Belgium, which be-
came independent in 1830, is predominantly CathoHc.
The states that won their freedom in Central and South
America are Catholic. About seven milhons who were
formerly within the Greek Orthodox Church now recog-
nize the supremacy of the Pope, although they retain
their Greek rites. An equal number of converts are said
to have been baptized in Africa and Asia. The nominal
Roman Catholic population of the world to-day is almost
three hundred milHon.
In saying this, however, it is necessary to bear in mind
that, in many Catholic countries, there are large elements
of the population out ofsympathy with the church. This
is and Italy to a striking degree. Equally
true in France
is it the case in Mexico and parts of South America.
Elements of the same dissatisfaction are to be found

even in Portugal and Spain. The disquieting fact is that
as these groups drift away from Catholicism they drift
into a practical atheism, or, at the best, agnosticism.
—
Policy of the recent Popes. In Pius IX and Leo
XIII, who reigned over the Roman Catholic Church
during a large part of the nineteenth century, two men of
large ability came to power. The former, when elected,
had the reputation of being a progressive, but the end of
his reign found the church totally divorced from the pro-
gressive movements of the age. Leo XIII and his suc-
cessors have followed the policy of conservatism.
Obedience is still the prized virtue in Catholics. Indepen-
dent thought is repressed, particularly in the religious
realm. A study of the edicts of recent Popes shows that
the most important are concerned with stamping out
what has been called "modernism," by which is meant
any scientific and historical study comparable to that
which has so transformed Protestantism in the past few
decades. Thomas Aquinas, that epitome of the thought
of the Middle Ages, remains the model of Catholic
thinking.
On the other hand, the Pope recently deceased,
Benedict XV, showed a desire to reenter the field of
popular politics on the part of the church. At the time
of his death he was tending toward an understanding
with the Italian monarchy that might have brought to an
end the fiction of imprisonment in the Vatican and have
launched the church on a new political career. It remains
to be seen to what measure Pius XI will develop this
policy.
The Future or the Catholic Church

Any prophecy as to the future of institutions is, in
these days, difficult. Especially is this true of those
which have their roots deep in the life of Europe. But
there are some problems that Roman Catholicism must

inevitably meet, and we may, with propriety, study
what the outcome is likely to be.
—
Catholicism and democracy. For more than a cen-
tury the Catholic Church has been dealing with peoples
stirred by democratic movements. These will increase
rather than decrease. And they will take varying forms.
It cannot be said that Catholicism has been fortunate in
its dealings with democracy in the past. In Latin-
America, in France, and in Italy, as democracy has in-
creased, so has the breach between the national leaders
and the church. What will be the outcome in Ireland,
where we see now the formation of an Irish Free State,
most of the leaders of which are devout sons of the
church? Or in the United States, whence come a large
share of the revenues that support the papal court? Or in
the Catholic countries of Europe, as the revolutionary
tendencies of the present penetrate? Is it possible for a
religious absolutism to exist in comfort with a political
democracy or socialism? It seems that Cathohcism must
—
either prove that it is possible something it has not been
—
able to do in the past or make readjustments in its own
life allowing for a greater degree of incorporation with
popular movements.
—
Catholicism and government. In attempting to
adjust itself to a democratic era, the Catholic Church
must wrestle with inner tendencies nourished by its
past. The democratic peoples are clear in their deter-
mination to keep the functions of state and church sep-
arate. Catholicism must accept that separation, or it
will suffer more than the state in the effort to end it.
Recent attempts by the papacy to influence the affairs
of government, such as the launching of the Popular
party in Italy, have shown that Catholicism is not yet
ready to give up this cause. If the attempt to interfere
as a church in poHtical matters persists, the democratic
peoples will not evade the issue.
Catholicism and liberal thought. At present the —
modernists seem sternly repressed within the Catholic
Church. Can they be kept so? Can the church continue
indifferent to the vast new stores of truth that are, year
by year, being opened to students of the Bible, of church
history, of science? In past centuries the authorities of
this church forced Gahleo to retract and rejected the
teachings of Copernicus, but that served only to under-
mine the authority of the church when the truth became
generally known. To-day Catholicism feels a pervasive
uneasiness among its intelligent sons in many lands.
What do? It seems clear that it must either find a
will it
working basis with the modern intellectual processes, or
it must resign itself to a constant loss of power as
popular education advances.

The function of Catholicism. What part, then,—
may the Roman Catholic Church play in the future? If
it accepts reform, a great and helpful part. For there will
always be those, particularly among the Latins, and per-

haps in parts of the East, who will respond to the color
of a worship that makes its appeal largely through re-
ligious symbolism, provided it does not flout their
intellectual capacity at the same time. But if it fails to
align itself with modern forces, Catholicism will stand as

the last bulwark of traditionalism, rallying the forces who
face toward the past for a few centuries more, until its
strength is utterly gone. May it choose the larger part!

I. In what countries are a majority of the inhab-
itants at present Catholics?
2. What can you tell about the state of popular edu-

cation in these countries?
3. Give an outline of the papacy of Pius IX.
4. Why does the Pope call himself "the prisoner of
the Vatican"?
5. Do you think that the Worid War will have any
effect upon the fortunes of the Catholic Chiuch?
6. In what way is the power of the Pope increasing?
Decreasing ?
CHAPTER XXXI
HOW CHRISTIANITY IS SPREAD
We have tried to review briefly the expansion of Chris-

tianity to the present, showing how its missionaries have
penetrated all continents, until there remains scarcely
a country in which the word of Jesus has not been heard.
To-day we see these missionary enterprises conducted
on a larger scale than ever before. It is well for us to
understand how these thousands of missionaries are
directed and supported.
The Missionary Societies
The societies that control most of the efforts of Chris-

tendom to spread itsmessage are comparatively recent
institutions. But they exert immense influence, and do
so very wisely.
The Catholic plan of campaign. As the work of —
the Roman Catholic Church in new lands grew (see
Chapter XIV) the necessity of holding its missionaries
to some central plan became clear, and the Pope
founded a Congregation for the Propagation of the
Faith, which remains to this day in control of Catholic
missions. All the orders, such as the Jesuits, the Fran-
ciscans, the Dominicans, the Augustinians, are required
to conduct their efforts along the lines laid down by this
Congregation, which has its headquarters in Rome.
Some idea of the control exerted is given by the fact that
the United States was conceived as requiring the super-
vision of this body until as recently as 1908.
260
HOW CHRISTIANITY IS SPREAD 261
The British societies. —The first prominent Protes-

tant missionary society to be founded was the Society
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which
for the
remains the body through which the high-church party
within the Church of England exerts its missionary
influence. It has been reenforced by the Church Mis-
sionary Society, representing the low-church group
within the same church. William Carey went to India
as the first representative of the Baptist Mission Society
of Great Britain, and the London Missionary Society,
acting for the Congregational churches, bears on its rolls
such names as Robert Morrison and David Livingstone.
There are societies representing practically every Prot-
estant body in England, and the Scotch societies have
been notable in the character of the men they have pro-
vided for the missionary enterprise.
—
American bodies. Three students in WilHams Col-
lege, holding a prayer meeting under a haystack in 1806,
resolved to form a society the object of which would be
*'to effect in the person of its members a mission to the
heathen." The American Board of Commissioners for

Foreign Missions was the result, a society that at first
directed the missionary work of three churches, but now
represents only the Congregationalists of America.
The American Baptist Missionary Union soon followed,
to send the great pioneer Judson to Burma. Then, in
rapid succession, all the principal Protestant denomina-
tions formed their societies and began sending abroad
their workers. More than sixty such bodies now form
the Foreign Missions Conference of North America.
Some did not begin with missionary work on other
continents. The missionary work of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, for example, traces back to the efforts
of a Negro lay preacher to convert a tribe of Wyandot
Indians on the Upper Sandusky in Ohio. In size the
missions supported by the American churches now out-
rank those of aU the rest of the world combined.
—
Other organizations. The Protestants of Continen-
tal Europe have done their part in spreading the gospel.
The Huguenots of to-day, through their Paris Evangel-
icalMissionary Society, have done a fine work in South
Africa among the Hottentots and in the French posses-
sions in that continent. Before the World War several
German societies were at work in many parts of the
world. Even the small Protestant church in Belgium
managed, when the Congo came under Belgian control,
to plant a mission there.
Many continental Protestants have supported the
work of the China Inland Mission, a body founded by
Hudson Taylor in the middle of the last century to carry
the gospel into the interior parts of China. The China
Inland Mission is interdenominational and international,
drawing its workers from many lands and many churches.
It has done a remarkable pioneer work, and may take
much credit for the manner in which China is open to
Christianity to-day.
Other bodies at work without the denominations to
spread the Christian message are the Bible societies, of
which the most important are the British and Foreign
Bible Society, the American Bible Society, and the Bible
Society of Scotland. The first named had, by 1916,
translated the Bible into 497 languages, and the American
body had versions in 169 languages available. These
societies have circulated more than 500,000,000 copies
of the Scriptures within a century, and expended more
than $100,000,000.
Very recently the Young Men's Christian Association
and the Young Women's Christian Association have
entered upon work in non-Christian lands. Both are

earning a large measure of success.
How A Missionary Society Works

It is more value, however, to know how these
of
societieswork than to call the roll of their names. There
is nothing haphazard about the way in which they are
trying to spread the gospel throughout the world. While

the administration of the societies differs in details, the
main outlines of their work are the same. We will
describe the working of one actual body.
The society's constituency. —
This missionary so-
ciety exists to carryon the work which the members of
a certain denomination desire to support in non-Chris-
tian lands. It obtains its revenue, which is now a little
less than $6,000,000 a year, from this constituency, and
to this group it must report annually. It prepares much
literature to keep interest aroused, and knows always
that the carrying through of its plans depends upon the
measure of support received from the four miUion people
in this group.
The society's control. —This constituency provides
for the control of the society by means
of a "board,"
which consists of about a hundred persons, some of them
ministers and some laymen. This body meets annually,
hears reports of the work of the year previous, votes
what money shaU be spent during the year to come
(basing these appropriations on the amount received in
the previous year), and provides the necessary officers
and committees for carrying out the policies approved.
—
The society's management. Under this board there
work the administrative officers. These are, in this case,
two "corresponding secretaries" who act as the general
administrative leaders. Under them are assistants, each
charged with responsibihty for knowledge of what is
being done in certain fields. Thus, one assistant looks
after the work in China, one after India, one after Africa,
and so on. Then there is one man at the head of the
department that seeks proper candidates for the mis-
sionary force and examines those who offer themselves
for this exacting service. Another, a doctor, heads a
department that examines these candidates to see
whether they can stand up under the physical strain of
the mission field, and has charge of the health of the
missionaries already at work. Another man has charge
of the preparation of the hterature that is to keep alive
the interest of the constituency. Another looks after the
sending of missionaries and materials to the fields.
Another cares for the legal interests of the society, an
important matter in view of the enormous amount of
property controlled in many lands and the bequests that
are frequently made to such a body. Finally, one man,
the treasurer, heads an extensive department that looks
after the financial interests of the society.
Not only do these officers frequently consult among
themselves as to the proper method of conducting their
work, but they meet at least once a year with the officers
of other societies, both from the United States and
Canada, in the Foreign Missions Conference of North
America, and there the responsibihties of the churches
are faced as a whole. Thus it comes that increasingly
the missionary boards are acting as bodies cooperating
in one great task, rather than as competitors.
The society's forces. —
Having planned what part it
shallbear in the enterprise of spreading Christianity in

other lands, the society sends its representatives abroad.
In the case of the particular body that furnishes our ex-
ample, its first missionary went to Africa in 1833. To-day
it has workers in more than thirty countries. Some of

these give most of their time to preaching or the direction
of native preachers. Even more work as teachers in
schools of many different kinds. Many are doctors or
nurses. Some are producing Christian literature. Some
seek to improve the industrial and agricultural methods
of the country in which they are stationed. Some give
themselves to the intricate details of a business of such
magnitude. Altogether this society has 1,133 missionaries
at work, and a woman's society connected with the same
church supports 575 more. With these work more than
16,000 preachers, teachers, and other workers who are
natives of the countries in which the society is planted.
Laying Out the General Plan

Great as are the efforts being made by the churches to
spread Christianity throughout the world, the size of the
task is so great that Christian leaders have come to see
that they must carefully distribute their forces. Other-
wise there will be concentrations of effort in some places
while others are deserted. Thus the spirit of cooperation
in mission work grows among the Protestant bodies
every year.
—
Edinburgh, 1910. The most striking evidence of
this up to the present was the convening in Edinburgh
in 1 9 10 of representatives from practically every Prot-
estant church in the world, where a general program for
the capture of the world was worked out. The outbreak
of the war, with its disruption of Europe, seriously in-
terfered with the complete carrying out of the processes
begun at Edinburgh, but the churches are now hard at
work to repair the damage to their plans. An Inter-
national Missionary Association has been formed that is
helping to enhst in a new united advance, and it will not
be long before a world conference similar to that of 1910
will convene.
On many of the large mission fields, as well, there are
now bodies that carefully study the needs and then
advise the churches as to where they can throw their
energies with most and without overlapping efforts
effect
already being made. So that, the world over, the
Protestant forces are coming more and more to act as
one army, aU working toward a common victory.

1. On a map of the world, indicate the countries in
which the missionary society of the church with which

you are connected has work.
2. Give a resume of the work done by this society
during the past five years.

3. On the average, how much do the members of the
church give annually for the support of this society?
4. Describe the organization of the society, and name
some of its leaders and missionaries.
5. What qualities do you think are needed to make a
successful missionary?
6. What do you consider "intelligent support" for the
missionary enterprise by an American Christian?

CHAPTER XXXII
CHRISTIANITY TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
Do you
remember that parting command of the Christ
that we quoted as we began this book? "Go ye therefore,
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them,
. . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
.
commanded you" (Matt. 28.19). It is now fitting for us,

summing up the facts in the previous chapters, to de-
termine how far the Christian Church has carried out
this injunction, and how much remains to be done.
Baptizing All Nations
We began our study with the days of the Emperor

Constantine. What an extension of the Christian mes-
sage there has been since then!
—
Since the days of Constantine. When Christi-
anity, after more than three hundred years of suffering
and effort, became the favored reUgion of the Roman
Empire, it found itself established in the lands around
the Mediterranean. To the men of those days that
seemed a tremendous triumph, for outside that territory
there were thought to be nothing but barbarians.
But on our modern maps of the world the territory
held by Christianity sixteen hundred years ago seems
small. The Mediterranean looks like some inland lake.
And we see that to-day some form of Christianity
prevails in most of Europe, North America, South
America, Australia, and Siberia, with flourishing Chris-
267
tian churches growing in other parts of Asia and
Africa.
There are more Christians to-day in the lands we call
non-Christian than there were in the whole Roman

Empire at the close of the first Christian century ! There
are only four small countries left, in interior Asia, from
which the gospel is excluded!
A —
Christian civilization. Of even greater impor-
tance is the fact that millions of people are living in a
civilization that is largely influenced by Christianity.
Not all the people in the United States, for example,
But all of them have the advantage
claim to be Christians.
of livingunder a civilization that has a Christian back-
ground, even if they are ignorant of that fact. Even if
we pay no attention to the influence of the churches in
securing peace and order, there remain the schools, the
hospitals, the homes for children and for other needy, the
charity organizations, all characteristics of Christian
lands.
The historians have testified that popular education
owes its origin to the church. Philanthropic institutions
are by-products of Christianity. One fact alone sets off
the Western world to-day from that of the time of
Constantine: slavery has ceased to be a legal institution.
One mark of the distance we have traveled in these
centuries is given by a conference of the leading nations,
such as that recently held at Washington, where the
effort to diminish thechances of international conflict
was begun and ended with Christian prayer.
—
The task remaining. Yet, in saying this, we do not
mean to hint that the task left Christians by their Master
is done, or nearly done. A recent estimate of the world's
population, divided according to their rehgious affilia-
tions, shows:
Q O
l-H O
t-H ^
^
t/5
s
I
o s
Si
Xi.-a§
W .3o.
o.S
5fc
c8
PERCENTAGE
many. But the performance of a ritual, with whatever
grandeur, can never the religious purposes of Jesus.
fulfill
**God is spirit," he said, "and they that worship him

must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4.24).
We say that there are about 272,000,000 Roman
Catholic Christians in the world, about 172,000,000
Protestant Christians, about 120,000,000 Greek Orthodox
Christians. But does this mean that all these know the
worship of God as a vital force to order their lives? We
know many in Europe, in South America, and
that to too
even in our own country, being a Christian means only
adherence to certain forms of churchgoing. And one
immediate task, if a world in sad need is to be helped, is
to make all churches vital centers of religious energy, and
all Christians men who not only call Jesus their Lord,
but do what he commands.

—
Can politics be Christian? Another great struggle
that the Christian forces are just entering upon is that to
make all the poHtical relations of men conform to the
spirit of Jesus. We have studied the attempt of Calvin,
in the early days of Protestantism, to make Geneva a
city for God (see Chapter XVI). That same attempt is
being made now, and must be, until not only our cities
but our states and our nations and our international
relations are conducted as in the sight of God. No man
will claim that we have reached that goal yet, but we
have set out toward it.
The noblest statesmen of the present, those whose
work will live, are those who are seeking to rule in accord
with the principles of Christ. Even the World War, with
its revelation of the shallowness of much of the poHtical
Life that we had thought Christian, has helped to rouse
many to seek this new goal.

It seems as though the church was just at the be-
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 271
ginning of a new crusade. It will be a crusade to do away

with force and deceit and selfishness as ruling powers in
international relations. It will do away with war. It will
bring nations to accept the highest code of Christian
ethics as their standard of conduct. The goal of the ancient
prophet will be won, men acting as nations to do what
Jehovah doth "require, ... to do justly, to love kind-
ness, and to walk humbly with God" (Micah 6. 8).
—
The gospel in industry. One more intense struggle
that lies before Christianity is the effort to bring all
industry into line with the spirit of Jesus. There are few
agricultural nations left, and these are rapidly turning to
manufacturing as the basis for their life. But the effort
to obtain wealth tends to become so absorbing that men
lose sight of that commandment that Jesus put on a
plane with love to God: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself" (Matt. 22. 39).
As long as little children and women have to work long
hours and sap their strength in order that others may
live in comfort or luxury, as long as honest labor does not
bring freedom from want or the fear of old age, as long
as a disproportionate part of the returns from industry
go to those who provide only capital, as long as there
remains a majority of the world's inhabitants on the
ragged edge of starvation, the task of making all industry
conform to the Christian ideal of human brotherhood has
still to be completed. It is the glory of the church that
Catholics and Protestants are to-day giving themselves
to this sort of intensive spreading of Christianity, so that
all the life of the Western nations may be in truth
Christian.
The Great Adventure and the Great Goal

As we study the marvelous things wrought for the
kingdom of God by the great Christians of the past, we
may think that the day of high adventure for Christ's
sake is past. No more can a man defy for the first time
those who would Hmit the working of the individual
conscience. No more can a man be the first to preach
Christ in India, in China, in Africa. No more can a man
gather the churches in a first world conference to plan
for the evangelization of every nation. But let us not
doubt that there are even greater opportunities before the
men and women who start out to serve Christ to-day!
A groping world. —Never has our world been so torn
up as we see it to-day. Modern science has thrown us
all in upon one another, and we have not mixed well
together. We are faint and bewildered with our fighting.

Men are giving themselves to all sorts of experiments,
hoping that they may find peace and content and a
happier life than their fathers knew. Men are sure that
the old ways were not the best ways. They will not go
back to them. But they do not know what they may go
forward to.
Our response to the challenge. To those who —
have discovered that Jesus holds out all that men are
seeking so desperately, this groping world presents a tre-
mendous challenge. Every unjust and unrighteous fact
in the life of the West, and every unfulfilled promise in
the life of the East calls them. They feel that there are
better things to be done than just make a living. They
are ready to turn away from ease and from personal gain
to join that company of modern crusaders of whom
Vachel Lindsay has sung:
"An endless line of splendor,
These troops with heaven for home,
With creeds they go from Scotland,
With incense go from Rome.
—— —
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 273
These, in the name of Jesus,

Against the dark gods stand,
They gird the earth with valor;
They heed the King's command.
"Onward the line advances.

Shaking the hills with power,
Slaying the hidden demons.
The lions that devour.
No bloodshed in the wrestling,
But souls new-bom arise
The nations growing kinder.
The child-hearts growing wise.
"What is the final ending?

The issue, can we know ?
Will Christ outlive Mohammed?
Will Kali's altar go?
This is our faith tremendous
Our wild hope, who shall scorn
That in the name of Jesus
The world shall be reborn!"
—
The world that is to be. Jesus sent his followers to
teach men to do all things that he had commanded. We
are a long way from that goal. But we press toward it.
It shall be achieved. One day men will awake in a world
in which there will be no war, no brutality, no injustice,
no sorrow. Declared an ancient prophet: "They shall
sit every man under his vine and under his fig- tree; and
none shall make them afraid" (Micah 4. 4). Race

prejudice will be gone from that world, and universal
brotherhood hold sway. Men will work for the
will
common and so assure their own. That will be a
welfare,
world through which Christianity has spread com-
. :

pletely. In it will be realized the vision granted to the
Christian mystic
The kingdom of the world is become the

kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ:
and he shall reign for ever and ever
(Revelation ii. 15).

1 Make a map of the world, showing by various colors
the predominant religious faiths in each part.
2. How does the Christian area compare in size now
with that at the time of Constantine?

3. Can you add any to the list of victories still to be
won by Christianity within the nominal Christian lands?
4. Which of the tasks remaining before Christianity
makes the greatest appeal to you, and why?
5. Make a list of ten life-callings. Can a person in
each one help in the spread of Christianity? How?
6. When do you consider that the work of spreading
Christianity will have been completed?

:
AIDS IN THE STUDY OF THIS BOOK
Properly to discuss the development of Christianity

some collateral reading, in addition to the material in
this textbook, is needed. It is recognized that many-
students and teachers will have access to only a small
collection of books. The following will be found helpful
For every topic in connection with church history and
doctrine,' the Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and
Ethics (New York. 1908).
For general history and biographies of the outstand-
ing characters, the Encyclopcedia Britannica, nth edition
(New York, 19 10).
For the Cathohc viewpoint on aU questions. The
Catholic Encyclopcpdia (New York, 1907).
For the facts of church history the best- compact books
seem to be: A History of the Christian Church, by
Williston Walker (New York, 1918); The Course of
Christian History, by W. J. McGlothlin (New York,
1 9 18); A Short History of the Christian Church, by John
W. Moncrief (New York, 1902; revised edition, 1908).

The latter is probably the most readable to the ordinary
reader.
For the history of Christian missions: The Spread of
Christianity in Modern World, by E. C. Moore
the
(Chicago, 1 919); History of Christian Missions, by C. H.
Robinson (New York, 1915); Via Christi, by L. M.
Hodgkins (New York, 1901). The latter is a popular
handbook, and brings the account only to the time of
Carey.
For a general background to the whole movement:
275
;
2J^ THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

The Outline of History, by H. G. Wells (New York, 1920)
The Story of Mankind, by Hendrick Van Loon (New
York, 192 1); Medieval and Modern Times, by J. H.
Robinson (New York, 1916).
For an account of other religions than Christianity:
The Religions of Mankind, by E. D. Soper (New York
and Cincinnati, 192 1).
For the Social Creed of the churches The Social Creed
:
of the Churches, by Harry F. Ward (New York and

Cincinnati, 1913). The creed itself may be obtained
from the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in
America, 105 East 2 2d Street, New York City.
In the study of Christianity's growth in non-Christian
lands all the books for mission study classes issued by
the Missionary Education Movement are of value.
Especial attention should be called to Social Aspects of
Foreign Missions, by W. H. P. Faunce; Rising Churches
in Non-Christian Lands, by Arthur R. Brown; The King-
dom and the Nations, by Eric M. North.
Every chapter in the book can be fortified by references
to important works. Because of lack of space no attempt
is made at any such extensive bibliography. Teachers
and students will find many pastors' hbraries of great
help in obtaining additional material. And it is to be
hoped that the background furnished by some of the
great novels, such as The Cloister and the Hearth for the
Middle Ages and Romola for the Renaissance, will not
be neglected.
Date Due
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iiiiiii

liAJti^fSffi!* PinimW51f?i5?«in5!M)(l p[miWft?((!ftm(flm!()Ht!HHu;ii!!,!(fi'ii;

BR 151 .H8 1922

Babib #. Botonep, (General €bttor

THE ABINGDON PRESS

Printed in the United States of America

LYNN HAROLD HOUGH

THE PAST SPRINGS TO LIFE

The Extent of Christianity About 600 a. d Frontispiece

Jerusalem, the Center of the Universe 104

Luther Before the Diet at Worms 117

Wesley Preaching in Wales 176

India's Response to the Gospel 193

The Challenge of Mohammedanism to Christianity 209

The Extent of Christianity, 1920 a. d 269

find some pride in belonging to a body that, with all its

have generously granted permission to quote from the

THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE IN THE

The Christian Message Enters the World

they have heard nowhere else. For that reason it is

that authority is generally moved to make to agitation.

ization that had been so determinedly repulsed from

upon the first of his three great missionary journeys,

The Struggle for the Mediterranean

hundred years after the days of Saint Paul.

mits. When the reading has finished, the president,

became the leader among his equals, and gradually

"Towns became centers varying in their influence

study? Justin could claim that "There is not a single

race of human beings, barbarians, Greeks, or whatever I

name you please to call them, nomads or vagrants, or

Suggestions for Discussion

regarded as new in the teaching of Jesus?

CHRISTIANITY FACES THE DANGER

Christianity a Favored Religion

Why did Constantinc thus favor Christianity, break-

famiMar.^ But why was he ready to adopt that sign?

and that this principle must be moral if it was to purge

power to mold every part of the empire. Con-

The Church as a Political Instrument

Constantine was seeking. It meant to bind all congre-

who might, in any detail, differ from this statement.

20 THE SPREAD OR CHRISTIANITY

THE DANGER OF SUCCESS 21

from city, from forest and from caves in the mountains.

We believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Maker

Christianity Outside the Roman Empire

Had Julian lived, he probably would have further

Suggestions for Discussion

ing his empire in Christianity?

THE BREAK-UP OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

nightmare, and would it not be natural if our forces

The Long Battle Line

then known world. But this extent was won only by

vided by the Danube and Rhine. The great difference

To make the problem of defense harder for the em-

On the Ruins of the Western Empire

Christianity and a Smashed World