History of the Christian church (Volume 5) online

Heine, a gifted poet, with an exquisite lyric strain
and a mocking spirit, is said by his ridicule to have
put an end to the German Romantic Movement.

To this circle of Romanticists belong Fichte and
Schelling, and the leader in the new era in theology,
Ernest Frederick Schleiermacher. The latter, a room-
mate for years wnth Frederick Schlegel, has been
called the high priest of Romanticism. He deserves
longer space in another relation, but his connection
with the Romantic Movement may be briefly sketched
here.

The revolt of the German Romanticists was mainly
against the institution of marriage. Political revolt
would have been useless, and was unthought of, be-
fore Germany came to self-consciousness in the dark
days of 1 807-1 8 13.

The German women married in their teens hus-
bands chosen for them by others, and with whom
they had little acquaintance and no real knowledge.
Divorce was easy, and carried with it no moral stigma.
The little German courts were often centers of social
corruption. To this was added the impulse of the
spirit of individual liberty and the right of the
emotional life, and revolt against artificial conventions,
and we see the sufficient source of the new gospel.
There was in that age no purer or more truthful soul
than Schleiermacher, yet he taught that if the
marriage was a mere convention, and did not bind in
union the souls of husband and wife, it was a duty to
dissolve it. He changed his views in later life, but for
years this was his belief. The practice ran beyond it.
The influence of the first literary man in Germany,



The Romantic Movement. 73

Goethe, helped to this revolt. However much Goethe
did for Germany and for the world in insisting on the
right and duty of self-development and self-culture,
certain it is that his life of immorality with women
permanently lowered the moral tone in literary circles
in Germany. After living with Christine Vulpius for
years, he married her to make legitimate their chil-
dren, but with no sense of moral obligation. Schil-
ler, who was the best of them, was for a time a
cavalier serventi to Charlotte von Kalb, and went to
Paris with her long after his marriage.

The tone in Romantic circles may be understood
from two or three notable examples. Dorothea Men-
delssohn, daughter of Moses Mendelssohn, married
young, and without choice on her part, the banker
Viet. After a life of misery for some years — for the
people cultivated these dangerous things, the feelings
— she divorced him to live with Frederick Schlegel
without marriage. Years after, they were married and
both went into the Roman Catholic Church.

Henriette Herz was also a Jewess; her husband
was a celebrated physician. Her house was open to
all that was intellectual or distinguished in Berlin.
Schleiermacher was her fntimate friend and corre-
spondent. He spent hours with her daily, teaching
her Greek, and discussing philosophy and literature.
Her husband died, and she found her fortune im-
paired. For a time she was a governess in the house
of Schleiermacher's sister-in-law. Then, with better
times and fortune, she returned to Berlin, and died
in the Evangelical Church.

During these years (i 802-1 805) Schleiermacher,
then a man past thirty-four, though never passing the
bounds of strictest friendship with Henriette Herz,



74 History of the Christian Church.

became enamored with Elenore Griinow, the wife of
a Lutheran clergyman of Berlin. Her marriage was
most unhappy, and she was a woman who lived in
her emotions, and had great talent in describing them.
Though Schleiermacher corresponded with her, he
would listen to nothing clandestine in their inter-
course. At last it was agreed with her husband, with
Schleiermacher, and herself, that she should procure a
divorce and marry Schleiermacher. All was ready for
the legal steps to be taken. At the last her good
angel prevailed, 'and Elenore Griinow drew back. At
the time Schleiermacher, now thirty-seven, felt that
the blow destroyed all prospect of happiness. Four
years later he married the widow of his friend, Hhren-
fried Willich. Sixteen years later he met Elenore
Griinow for the first time since she refused him. He
went up to her and said, '' God has been very good
to us, Elenore." This incident in the life of one of
the noblest men of the time will show the strength of
the current.

A woman of even stronger intellect was Charlotte
Michaelis. Her father was a celebrated professor of
theology. When very young she married Dr. Boh-
mer. He left her a widow at a little over twenty
years of age with a daughter, Auguste Bohmer, who
died at fifteen, but was a most remarkable child. In
1779 she joined in a Revolutionary movement at
Mainz. The plot was detected, and she was im-
prisoned. There she carried on an intrigue with a
Frenchman with serious consequences. A. W. Schlegel
came to her rescue, and gave her to his brother Fred-
erick to care for. Later A. W. Schlegel married her.
Then, tiring of her, he went to live with Sophie
Bernhardi, the sister of Ludwig Tieck, the novelist,



The Romantic Movement. 75

who divorced her husband for his sake. Then Charlotte
Schlegel procured a divorce and married the philoso-
pher Schelling, with whom she lived until her death.
The remarkable thing is the affection, and even rev-
erence with which these men, who were themselves
men of no ordinary ability, speak of this woman. The
tribute of Schelling after her death is especially re-
markable. They speak with a reverence of her intel-
lect and character, which, in view of her career, is
surprising. This relation shows something of the
Germany of that period, as well as of the Romantic
Movement. The sin, as always, brought its punish-
ment. But this tangle of aflSnities shows something
of what Christianity had to overcome in order to win
Germany.

In Italy the movement made its way as in Spain,
Portugal, the Scandinavian countries, and the Sla-
vonic nationalities, like Bohemia, Poland
and Russia. These last we have not space ^MofeTenT*"
to consider. In Italy, Ugo Foscolo, and in other
Leopardi represented the poets; Manzoni *-*"**»•
in his *' I Promesi Sposi," fiction; Rosminni and Gio-
berti, philosophy ; and Carlo Botta, Pietro Colletta, and
Caesare Cantu, the historians.

This record sums up the most remarkable literary
result of the Romantic Movement in poetry, fiction,
and criticism. Its faults and excesses have

, . , , . The Romantic

not been spared. A word may be given to Movement
efforts more indirect, but more far-reach- *"** Historical

ata, T-w . -i ' Learning.

mg. The Romantic Movement by its
return to a reverence for the past, and a recognition
of its necessary connection wnth the present, gave an
immense impulse to the study of history, and criti-
cism of its sources.



76 History of the Christian Church.

Niebuhr easily led the way in this work. In
Church history he was followed by August Neander,
Gieseler and Hase. Dahlman, Hausser, Von Ranke,
and Von Sybel, with Mommsen and Curtius, Giese-
brecht and Waitz, have made the German historical
scholarship renowned in this century. In France,
Sismondi, Michaud, Thierry, Guizot, Michelet, and
Thiers, while not so fundamental in research, added
to the laurels of French historians. In England,
Thirl wall and Grote, Hallam and Macaulay, made
illustrious this era. In philosophy, the Romantic
Movement left little trace, except in the idealism and
nature-philosophy of Schelling, and perhaps the eclec-
tic philosophy of Cousin.

But one thing the Romantic Movement had, and
that covered many sins, — it had enthusiasm. It seems
Summary. Sometimes as if the men of the first half
of the nineteenth century, if they were
ignorant of much that we know, and died without
many comforts we enjoy and deem necessary to civil-
ized life, yet had a richer, fuller existence. They had
more in themselves; they felt themselves in such re-
lations to the main currents in the stream of things
that they easily kindled into great enthusiasm. Let
us not despise such enthusiasms ; for they fuse peo-
ples and races, nations and Churches, so that they can
take the impress of the new molds of the future.
Whoever gathers the chief gems of the literature of
Europe will find sparkling among them, with a luster
all their own, the masterpieces of the Romantic liter-
ature of the nineteenth century. A movement of
such power of thought, feeling, and expression, largely
affected the life and problems of the Christian Church.



Chapter IV.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

As THK largest, wealthiest, and most powerful
Christian Church in Europe, and the only Christian
Church in France, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Bavaria,
which was even tolerated by the law, the Roman
Catholic Church sujQfered most by the Revolution
and gained most by the Reaction. The vicissitudes
of her fall and restoration have a dramatic unity and
interest not surpassed by the history of any nation
during the century, not excepting France herself. If
she had no great pontiff, Pius VII was an amiable
ruler and a good man. If there was no great charac-
ter at the Court of Rome, Hercules Consalvi was a
diplomatist little inferior in abilities and success to
Talleyrand, and much his superior in character. Few
great men adorned her annals, but De lyamennais and
I^acordaire were great preachers, Mohler and Bol-
linger must be mentioned in any record of scholar-
ship, while Rosminni is the author of a well-wrought-
out system of philosophy. Hence, without great
genius or characters, Rome won back a large part
of her old dominion by the sagacity and dexterity
with which she sat still during the Revolution, and
then turned all things to her profit in the Reaction
which was sure to come. Whether this was the
wisest statesmanship, and whether it did not bring on
a greater disaster and permanent loss, the second half
of the century was to disclose. For the present

77



78 History of the Christian Church.

Rome became more powerful than before for the one
hundred years, since the death of Benedict XIV.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution the
Church of Rome was supreme in all Latin lands. No
The Church ^i^sent, no Evangelical preaching or socie-
of Rome tics, wcrc allowcd in France, Spain, Portu-
out°brlak of g^^' Belgium, or Austria. On the Continent
the French of Europe shc had nearly one hundred
Revolution, jj^^jj^j^s ^f adherents to less than twenty
millions of Evangelical Christians in Germany, Scan-
dinavia, and Holland. Throwing into the scale Great
Britain and Ireland, she had over a hundred million
to less than thirty million Evangelical believers in all
Europe. In America, following the estimate of popu-
lation given by Humboldt, she had twenty millions to
five of the Evangelical faith. In the whole world she
could count one hundred and twenty-five millions to
probably half that number combining all populations
of the Evangelical, Greek, and Oriental Confessions.
To put it differently : On the Continent, excluding
Russia, five out of six of the population were Roman
Catholics; in all Europe, excluding Russia, nearly
four out of five; in all America, four out of five;
and in the whole of Christendom, two out of three
of the inhabitants were adherents of the Church of
Rome.

With this preponderance in population went, in
large measure, that of arts and arms. France was the
leading military nation in Europe. With some slight
eclipse, vshe had been such for one hundred and fifty
years. She was to show herself its conqueror in the
next twenty. She was also the center of refinement
and culture. Paris was the leader in philosophy as



The Roman Catholic Church. 79

well as in fashion. The three mOvSt famous literary
men of the eighteenth century, Montesquieu, Voltaire,
and Rousseau, made Paris splendid with their fame,
Spain had the most wealthy and extended colonial
empire in the world. Rome was the center of the
world of art. The Church of Rome possessed in
France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and Italy, from
two-fifths to two-thirds of real estate, and had large
revenues besides. The proportion was nearly as
great in Germany. There the emperor was a Roman
Catholic; there were no nobles in Europe who could
vie in wealth and power with the ecclesiastical elec-
tors or the great prelates of the Rhine and Upper
Germany. The archbishops in France, Spain, and
Italy outranked all the nobility but the princes of the
royal house, and their wealth was greater than their
rank. The princes of the Church in Europe and
America held the largest amount of real estate, and
enjoyed the largest revenues of any subjects of the
crown. In these countries the wealth of the clergy
as a class was greater than that of the nobility. Tens
of thousands of convents were amply endowed, while
the hundreds of thousands of inmates of both sexes
formed a standing army ever ready for active service.
There was, of course, another side. For one hun-
dred years in France ; for one hundred and fifty years
in Austria, Bavaria, and the ecclesiastical The other
territories of South Germany and the side, the

Fruitful

Rhine; for two hundred years in Belgium, Mother of
Spain, Portugal, and Italy, the Church of ^^^o'"*'**"^-
Rome had wrought her perfect work. She had con-
trolled the education, the social and intellectual life
of the people. There had been no toleration of



8o History of the Christian Church.

Evangelical worship or thought. The printed page,
like the preacher, was banished. What was the re-
sult ? Infidelity ran riot among all classes who could
read, as never before in the history of Christendom.
In the whole course of that unbelieving century, then
nearing its end, we look in vain for one work of con-
sequence or influence from the hand of a single rep-
resentative of the wealthiest and most powerful and
most numerous clergy that ever owned allegiance to
the Church of Rome. The works of its most admired
author, the canonized St. Alfonse de I^iguori, are
scarcely calculated to win to the faith a single unbe-
liever, to say nothing of staying the downfall of
nations. Nor was there any popular movement for
quickening the religious life among the people.

If the Church of Rome could have raised up
leaders who could have dealt with French skepticism
and Atheism as the leaders of Evangelical thought in
England did with Deism, how different would have
been the history of the last two centuries! If there
could have been a revival of the religious life like that
under Wesley, how different would have been the
foundation in Latin Europe on which should rest the
political reforms of the nineteenth and the social re-
forms of the twentieth century !

It is stating sober fact, without the least trace
of ill-will, to say that the Church of Rome, in these
lands where she had for generations crushed out all
Evangelical teaching, and held unquestioned suprem-
acy, betrayed the greatest trust ever committed to a
Church. Unbelievers and roues sat in her episcopal
and archiepiscopal seats. She chose to be persecut-
ing, bigoted, and ignorant. The betrayal of that trust



The Roman Catholic Church. 8i

was the fruitful parent of revolutions, not only that
of 1789, but of the revolutions since, which have been
the chronic curse of Latin lands.

The Church of Rome has never believed in pop-
ular intelligence; she has always relied upon au-
thority. In the new era of popular government the
populations under her care, whether in Ireland or Po-
land, in France or Spain or Italy, have shown them-
selves conspicuously unfitted for democratic govern-
ment. The basis in popular intelligence, morality,
and public spirit have yet to be supplied. The sin of
those generations of neglect and abuse was immense,
and grievous was the atonement paid.

Born of this sin was the Revolution. The wealth
of the Church of Rome, gathered for a thousand
years, went down in it. At one stroke the ^^^ Revoiu-
title to Church property was destroyed tionandth©
which had an annual income of 200,000,000 ^^^ '
livres, worth now nearly the same amount in dollars.
One hundred and forty thousand monks and nuns
were dispossessed of their houses and of their in-
comes, though some provision w^as made for their
needs. In the course of the Revolution the old
ecclesiastical organization was broken up. For ten
years worship ceased in most of the forty thousand
communes of France. The bells were cast into
cannon, and in France, as later in Germany, some of
the most ancient and stately edifices, hallowed by cen-
turies of Christian worship, were used as barns for
forage or as stables for the cavalry. The most
ancient, famous, and wealthy abbeys were utterly de-
stroyed.

This confiscation of Church and monastic prop-
6



82 History of the Christian Church.

erty passed from France to Germany in 1830, Austria
1835-9, Portugal 1834, Spain 1836, Mexico 1863, and
Italy in 1871. In all these Roman Catholic countries,
within eighty years from the action initiated by the
French National Assembly, the property of the
Church has been as ruthlessly confiscated, and the
monastic orders, with few exceptions, as thoroughly
rooted out as in England under Henry VIII. In
all these cases, except Italy, the pope has expressly
confirmed these confiscations. How this was brought
about we shall see when we consider the policy of the
Concordats.

The popes of the nineteenth century, except I^eo

XII and Pius VIII, enjoyed long pontificates. Leo

XII reigned five years and five months.

The Papacy. .

and Pius VIII one year and eight months.
On the other hand, Gregory XVI reigned fifteen
years; Pius VII, twenty-three years; Pius IX, almost
thirty-two years, the longest reign of any Roman
pontifi"; and Leo XIII, at the end of the century, had
reigned twenty-two years. These six popes added to
but three names on the papal lists. There were three
who took the name of Pius, two of Leo, and one of
Gregory.

None of these popes could compare in learning or
ability with Benedict XIV, or Clement XIV, in the
preceding century. Not one of them could be called
a great man. The progress of the Roman Catholic
Church has been rather in spite of, than through,
most of them. Only Pius VII and Leo XIII proved
that they understood the times in which they lived.
The pontificate of both showed the work of states-
men ; that of Pius through the genius and ability of



The Roman Catholic Church. 83

Consalvi, and that of lyco through his own diplomatic
aptitudes and training.

In the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice,
about three-quarters of a mile from San Marco, stands
the cruciform church of San Giorgio, with r^^
a striking dome and fagade. It commands Conclave
a noble view of the city, and is a conspicu- °* '^°°*
ous object of interest from the piazetta of San Marco.
Adjoining it, in 1800, was a large Benedictine convent,
now used as barracks. The situation is isolated, yet
accessible, and with ample accommodations for the
cardinals, made it well adapted for the Conclave held
under Austrian protection to elect a successor to Pius
VI, who had died in hostile France. Rome was too
unsettled for the cardinals to venture thither, to say
nothing of assembling for a papal election. Here, on
this island, the thirty-five cardinals sat in Conclave
during the cold and damp Venetian winter of 1799
and 1800. Their session began December i, 1799,
and continued until March 14, 1800. Never since the
Reformation, or even since the return from Avignon
and the Councils of Constance and Basel, had a Con-
clave met with equal difficulties encompassing the Ro- |
man Catholic Church. The whole ecclesiastical con- '
stitution of the Church was uprooted in France, and
overthrown in Italy and Germany. The temporal
power of the pope had been completely overthrown,
and, though restored by breaking up the Roman Re-
public, yet was on the most frail conceivable basis.
How to preserve the Church in the midst of the tri-
umphant Revolution w^hich had overthrown the papacy
as well as the Church of France, and had led away
captive the last pope to die in exile, was the supreme



84 History of the Christian Church.

question. The Conclave met under Austrian protec-
tion, and Austrian arms had been supreme in Italy the
preceding year; but Napoleon Bonaparte was now
First Consul of France, and it required little pre-
science to discern who again would say the decisive
word concerning the destiny of the Papal States and
all Italy. Precisely three months after the dissolution
of the Conclave came the battle of Marengo, which
made the French supreme in Italy. Amid these diffi-
culties the cardinals remained in Conclave for one
hundred and four days, when the election of Pius VII
terminated their labors. This result was due to the
skill and ability of the secretary of the Conclave,
Hercules Consalvi.

Consalvi was born at Rome, June 8, 1757. In his

sixteenth year he entered the service of the Papal

Court as a page. He followed the regular

Consalvi. . \. ^, , , , ,

promotion of the papal law courts, and by
1797 became auditor of the Rota, an important posi-
tion. He was a man of high character, of undaunted
courage, of penetration and sagacity, and of great
address. Face to face with Napoleon, he more than
once held his own, and won that ruler's respect and
hatred. He never was ordained priest, but remained
a simple deacon, though cardinal and virtual ruler for
many years of the Papal States. Yet when he died
he had accumulated but a moderate fortune, which he
left mainly to the poor. Consalvi believed in and ac-
complished many political reforms in abolishing the
abuses which brought on the Revolution. He op-
posed, but in vain, the restoration of the Jesuits; he
was on excellent terms with Evangelical statesmen,
artists, and men of letters; yet he gave the watch-



The Roman Catholic Church. 85

word for the religious policy of the Roman Catholic
Church in the new century in his own expression,
" The policy of the Roman Catholic Church is intol-
erance." In matters of religion she must stand by the
past. She could make no compromise nor in any way
recognize or affiliate with other Christian Churches.
He had rare knowledge and taste in the fine arts, and
was their munificent patron, as the life of Canova
testifies. He makes the impression of a man coura-
geous, sincere, and humble. To him the Roman Cath-
olic Church owes more than to any other man who
lived in the nineteenth century. And the Evangel-
ical believer who knows his virtues will stand in rever-
ence before his humble tomb in San Marcello in the
Corso at Rome.

Consalvi gained the election for his friend, Cardi-
nal Chiaramonti, by winning the support of Cardinal
Maury, who controlled the votes of a flying squadron
of six cardinals. Cardinal Maury had been the most
bitter and irreconcilable enemy of the French Revolu-
tion and all that belonged to it. Later, as Archbishop
of Paris, he was to be the most pliant instrument of
Napoleon's tyranny over the Church of France. Mid-
way between he gave the decisive voice in the Papal
Conclave at San Giorgio, March 14, 1800.

Gregorio Barnaba Luigi Chiaramonti, who took
the name of Pius VII, was born of a noble family in
Cesena, the birthplace of his predecessor,
August 14, 1742. At the age of sixteen he ,8io!,823.
entered the order of the Benedictines. He
afterwards taught philosophy at Parma and Rome.
When forty-three years of age he was made Cardinal
and Bishop of Imola. He had in a measure sympa-



86 History of the Christian Church.

thized with the revolutions which accompanied Na-
poleon's campaign of 1 796. He made a favorable im-
pression upon Napoleon, which was fully reciprocated.
At the age of fifty-eight he came to the pontifical
throne, entering Rome July 3, 1800. No pope of mod-
ern times has found the affairs of the Papal See and
of the Roman Catholic Church in a condition so des-
perate. The Revolution had been everywhere tri-
umphant. The man who was to rule the most of
Roman Catholic Europe, to take away the temporal
power, and to hold the pope himself a prisoner of
state, and in exile for almost five years, was the most
successful general, the most unscrupulous and impe-
rious ruler ever seen in Christendom.

What qualities had Pius to meet these circum-
stances? He was upright and devout, he was meek
and amiable to the verge of weakness, he was genuinely
liberal in his tendencies, and sincerely pious. For
him the genius and ability of Napoleon had a personal
attraction. With all his gentleness, there was a firm-