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1932.] A Puritan Counter-Reformation 17 A PURITAN COUNTER-REFORMATION BY EVAKTS B. GREENE drawing of historical parallels is recognized by sober scholars as a precarious business; but it has a certain fascination which few of us can altogether resist. Indeed, like many adventures which have an element of danger in them, it is not necessarily un- profitable. It is easy—and tempting—to push histori- cal analogies farther than the facts will justify; but if they are used with care they may help us to see events in better perspective and interpret the experience of an epoch or a particular region with the help of clues suggested by similar experiences more or less remote in time or place. However that may be, this is the kind of adventure in which, for better or worse, you are now invited to engage. As the title has probably indicated to most of you, the analogy here proposed takes us back, first, to the Europe of the sixteenth century, and then to the New England of some four generations ago—to the age of the Catholic Counter-reformation and to the period of the so-called evangelical revival in New England. During the first half of the sixteenth century the church-state system of medieval Europe was vigor- ously, and over large areas successfully, challenged by the Protestant Revolution. Under the leadership of such former Catholic.churchmen as Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Cranmer, in close alliance with secular princes and magistrates, ancient endowments were diverted either to secular purposes or to religious uses more or less at variance with the ancient faith and practice. The Reformers themselves were sure that their work was essentially constructive rather than

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Page 1: A PURITAN COUNTER-REFORMATION

1932.] A Puritan Counter-Reformation 17

A PURITAN COUNTER-REFORMATIONBY EVAKTS B. GREENE

drawing of historical parallels is recognized bysober scholars as a precarious business; but it has

a certain fascination which few of us can altogetherresist. Indeed, like many adventures which have anelement of danger in them, it is not necessarily un-profitable. It is easy—and tempting—to push histori-cal analogies farther than the facts will justify; but ifthey are used with care they may help us to see eventsin better perspective and interpret the experience of anepoch or a particular region with the help of cluessuggested by similar experiences more or less remotein time or place. However that may be, this is the kindof adventure in which, for better or worse, you are nowinvited to engage. As the title has probably indicatedto most of you, the analogy here proposed takes usback, first, to the Europe of the sixteenth century,and then to the New England of some four generationsago—to the age of the Catholic Counter-reformationand to the period of the so-called evangelical revival inNew England.

During the first half of the sixteenth century thechurch-state system of medieval Europe was vigor-ously, and over large areas successfully, challenged bythe Protestant Revolution. Under the leadership ofsuch former Catholic.churchmen as Luther, Zwingli,Calvin, and Cranmer, in close alliance with secularprinces and magistrates, ancient endowments werediverted either to secular purposes or to religious usesmore or less at variance with the ancient faith andpractice. The Reformers themselves were sure thattheir work was essentially constructive rather than

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destructive—the revival of the pure gospel and thereconstruction of Christian institutions in accordancewith the practice of the primitive Apostolic Church.To their Catholic opponents, however, the victories ofProtestantism in northern Europe were so many blowsat "the faith once delivered to the Saints," certifiedand safeguarded for centuries by a venerable hier-archy under the guidance of the Roman pontiff. Forthem it was a tragic catastrophe and a calamitousbreach in the unity of western Christendom—thetriumph, for a time at least, of heresy and schism.That, in brief, was the situation in northern Europein the middle of the sixteenth century, when thegeneration which was challenged by Luther's famousninety-five theses on the church door at Wittenbergwas gradually passing off the stage.

Even to those who have not inherited the Catholictradition the era ushered in by the Protestant Revolthas its tragic aspects. Genuine zeal for reform was tooobviously tainted by association with sordid motivesof various kinds, political and economic. Ecclesiasticalcontroversy on both sides was ungenerous and bitter.The power of the state was used, in Catholic a,ndProtestant countries alike, to suppress dissentingopinions, and the so-called Religious Wars stand outas one of the major scandals of Christian history.

Nevertheless, it is easy in a natural revulsion fromthe bitterness, the bigotry, and the cruelty of theseancient conflicts, to forget the constructive aspects ofthat stormy epoch. Even the most confirmed pacifistmust concede that though "war is hell," it may havecertain compensatory by-products—the bringing intouse of neglected resources, the stimulating of theinventive faculties, the development of new agenciesfor purposes of offense or defense which may later beapplied to beneficent service in the arts of peace. Tosome extent, the same principle may be applied to oneof the least amiable forms of conflict, the clashing ofecclesiastical institutions and theological dogmas which

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may often appear almost, if not quite, without mean-ing for later generations. Even in conflicts of thiskind the human spirit may be stimulated to freshthinking and the development of new agencies forconstructive service. Attacks upon ancient dogmasand traditional practices have their uses not only forthose who form the attacking party, but in some degreealso for those who seek to preserve the values of the oldorder.

There is perhaps no more striking illustration inmodern times of the stimulating effect of ecclesiasticalconflict upon intellectual activity and institutionalgrowth than the developments in the Catholic churchin the sixteenth century which are commonly referredto as the Catholic reaction, or perhaps preferably theCounter-reformation.

To begin with, the teaching of the Protestanttheologians, though it left much of the old dogmaticstructure intact, nevertheless departed sufficientlyfrom the medieval tradition to call for restatementof the orthodox position. This seemed especiallynecessary since, within the Church itself, there wereinfluential personages who sympathized in some degreewith the more moderate reformers. In view of thissituation, the orthodox forces felt the need of settingup a standard about which they could rally, ofreaffirming and in some measure restating old posi-tions. This requirement was supplied by a series ofdogmatic decrees adopted by the Council of Trentduring the years from 1546 to 1563. These officialpronouncements begin with a solemn reaffirmation ofthe Nicene Creed, following, so the opening canonreads, the example of "the Fathers, who have beenwont, in the most sacred councils, at the beginningof the Actions thereof, to oppose this shield againstheresies; and with this alone, at times, have they drawnthe unbelieving to the faith, overthrown heretics,and confirmed the faithful. " In the decrees which

^Dogmatic Canon» and Decree» (N. Y. 1912) 4.

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followed, suggested concessions to the opposition weregenerally rejected and on one point after another theold positions were reaffirmed in uncompromismgterms. "Now," in the words of a distinguishedGerman scholar, "the Catholic knew exactly what hisreligion and who his opponents were."^

For the defence of the faith thus authoritativelystated, effective organization was demanded, and theCouncil of Trent met this requirement by equallyuncompromising assertion of centralized authority mthe Roman papacy, which, so far as the institutionallife of the Church was concerned, emerged from thisperiod of conflict stronger than ever before in itshistory. . , , i •

If on issues of dogma and the essentials of ecclesi-astical authority there was no yielding to the revolu-tionary spirit of the time, there was in other respectsfrank recognition of new needs and new agencies. Ifthe Church was to make head against its opponents,reforms long urged by loyal churchmen must be takenseriously in hand. Especially in the face of vigorousopposition was a more adequate discipline of theclergy called for and a clerical leadership betterequipped to meet the special needs of the time.

In the vital work of clerical education variousagencies were developed but none of them was moreeffective than the new monastic order founded byIgnatius Loyola. The Society of Jesus, thoughprobably not in its original conception designed forthe combating of Protestantism, proved in fact one ofthe most important instruments of the Catholicreaction. If it had the centralized organization of anarmy, that organization was, to a far greater extentthan any army, built up of highly trained individuals.Admission to the order was conditioned by the mostrigorous preparation, intellectual as well as spiritual.Though every individual was subject to orders from

l-Der Katholik wutite nun genau, «M seine Religion und wer seine Gegner ^aren."M. Phffipeon, Weit Europa in Zeitalter Philipp II, Elizabeth und Heinrich IV, 177-178.

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his superiors, there was a flexibility in the adminis-tration of discipline which made it easier for theJesuit than for members of most medieval orders toadapt his methods to new and unforeseen situations.

In particular, Loyala gave a new emphasis to theeducational function of a religious order, "as a specialministry, a special means of obtaining the end of hissociety—the glory of God and the salvation of souls."Besides the central college at Rome, to which wereattracted some of the best Catholic scholars of Europeand which by 1584 enrolled more than 2,000 students,numerous other colleges were established, first insouthern Europe, and later in the South GermanStates, Bohemia, Hungary and the Netherlands.Not only in their own seminaries, but also in someof the universities, the Jesuits became an importanteducational influence.^

It would be a mistake to think of the educationalwork of the Jesuits simply from the point of view ofreligious propaganda. Its significance for the historyof the theory and technique of education is generallyconceded. Francis Bacon complained of superstitionin the Jesuit colleges but he recognized their skill inteaching.^ They had the approval in this respect, ofthe philosopher, Descartes; and the English historianOscar Browning, though a sharp critic of their educa-tional ideals, admitted that the early Jesuit teachers"gave the best education of their time."^

No less conspicuous was the work of the Society ofJesus in the cause of missions. By the end of its firstdecade St. Francis Xavier had found his way to India,the Malay archipelago, and Japan. In the nextgeneration Matteo Ricci inaugurated the Jesuitmissions in China and another half-century found theorder active in North and South America. Other

'R. Schwickerath, Jesuit Education, 86-88, 106£f, 144.'Advancement of Learning, Book I (in J. M. Robertson, Philoaophical Works of Francis

Bacon, 50).'Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed.), VII, 674.

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orders played their parts in this heroic age of mis-sionary expansion; but the work of the Jesuits and thenew spirit of the Counter-reformation were of primeimportance. This new position of missions in the lifeof the Church was recognized in 1622 by the foundingin Rome of the Congregation of the Propaganda,charged with the supervision of Catholic missionsthroughout the world.

As in the case of the Jesuit schools, we must recognizein the missions of the new order a service, rendered pri-marily with a religious motive, which has neverthelesssomething more than merely ecclesiastical significance.Through the Catholic missionaries of the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries, notably in the great series ofJesuit Relations from Asia and America, Europederived much of its knowledge of remote peoplesand civilizations. It was largely also through FatherRicci and his successors at Peking that China learnedsomething not only of western religion but of westerncivilization and western science.

In his recent History of Modern Culture, a non-Catholic scholar has strikingly summed up the achieve-ments of this great agency of the Counter-reformation :^

With extraordinary zeal, they addressed themselves to thethree tasks of educating youth, of evangelizing the heathen,and of beating back heresy. Nothing is more remarkable thantheir versatility. They preached to naked savages on theCongo and on the Amazon, and they built churches and paintedpictures for the most cultivated peoples of Europe. Whilesome of them explored Asia and the Indies, others wrotelibraries of apologetics, history, moral philosophy, and poetry,or labored to reconcile science and religion, for the age ofLouis XIV.

The Jesuit order then, with the Counter-reformationof which it was a prime instrument, furnishes anadmirable example of the way in which an ancientsystem of thought, and the institutions through whichit is expressed, may renew its vitality in the midst ofconflict and apparent defeat—may even from these

'Preserved Smith. Bist, of Modern Culture, I. 363.

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trials derive fresh stimulus for new and larger under-takings. Let us turn now to a situation nearer to us,both in place and time, and consider how far thesixteenth century experience of western Christendommay be paralleled in the old Puritan commonwealthsof New England one hundred years ago.

It would be necessary, of course, to go back stillanother century, to the pioneer settlements of Massa-chusetts and Connecticut, to find a time when Puri-tanism had anything like the freedom from competitionenjoyed by the medieval Church in western Europe;but well into the eighteenth' century the typical NewEngland town was one in which a single religious cultcould count upon the legal and moral support of thecommunity as a whole. There were indeed dissentinggroups; but outside of a few towns, they were almost, ifnot quite, negligible. Furthermore, dissent, so far as itexisted, rarely involved any significant departure fromwhat may be called the common elements of Catholicand Protestant orthodoxy.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century thissituation had radically changed, without, however,any spectacular alteration in ecclesiastical institutions.The essential change which came about in the latterhalf of the eighteenth century was the peacefulpenetration of the old established churches, particularlyin eastern Massachusetts, by new modes of thinking—rationalist, deistic, liberal, or what you will. In theirtotal result they meant a breaking away, first, fromdistinctively Calvinist dogmas, like the doctrine ofelection, but also quite as clearly from certain tenets ofhistoric Christianity—such as original sin and theTrinity of the Godhead—regarding which most of theProtestant Reformers were in substantial agreementwith the Catholic doctors of the Council of Trent.

In eastern Massachusetts and especially in that partof it which now falls within the metropolitan area ofBoston, ecclesiastical control had passed largely fromthe clergy and laity who still accepted the Calvinism

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of the Puritan pioneers into the hands of those whoregarded that teaching as both antiquated andabhorrent. Occupying this position of advantage, theliberals in this part of New England had no desire toinaugurate a revolution in ecclesiastical institutions.They preferred, at first, to minimize the differencesbetween themselves and their conservative neighbors.The situation was, of course, complicated by constitu-tional and statutory provisions which established closerelations between Church and State. So it came aboutthat the ultimate seceders from many of the historicchurches of the old Bay Colony were not the liberalsbut the conservatives, who considered themselves, asthey doubtless were in fact, more nearly in harmonywith the principles of the founders.

This is not the place for a detailed review of theUnitarian - Trinitarian controversy, but a few of theevents which brought about a definite alignmentbetween the liberal and conservative forces must berecalled briefly.^ One was the election, in 1805, of aUnitarian, Henry Ware, to the Hollis Professorship ofDivinity in Harvard College. That election was, ofcourse, only one of a series of changes which, from thepoint of view of the conservatives, had graduallytransformed Harvard from a seminary of "sounddoctrine" into an enemy stronghold. Secondly, wehave to consider a series of local controversies in whichconservatives and liberals contended for the choice ofministers of their respective schools of thought. Inmany of these cases, the communicants composing thechurch were outvoted by the members of the town orparish, with the result that the church property, orwhat in European ecclesiastical history would havebeen called the temporalities, passed out of the controlof the actual church members. Under the terms of the

'These developments are conveniently summarized in Williston Walker, History of theCongregational Churches in the U. S., 329-347; J. H. Allen, The Unitarians (.AmericanChurch History Series, X) chaps. VII, VIII; J. W. Platner, W. W. Penn et al., BdigiousHistory 0/New England, King'» Chapel Lectures, chap. I, (Platner), II (Fenn).

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existing law, as interpreted by the MassachusettsSupreme Court in the Dedham case of 1820, it has beenestimated that eighty-one churches with conservativemajorities were obliged to turn over their propertiesto minority groups. Whatever may be said on thebare issue of legal interpretation, it is now generallyacknowledged that the law as thus interpreted workedserious injustice, was not in harmony with previouspractice, and aroused intense resentment.*

Finally, notwithstanding the hardship involved, theorthodox element in the churches determined that thetime had come for a clean-cut alignment. In one parishafter another the orthodox members, often though notalways constituting a majority of the church, withdrewand resigned the temporalities to their opponents.The result was that what had originally been a divisionbetween conservative and liberal elements within thechurches became a permanent cleavage between twodenominations.

So far, then, there is a certain, though by no meanscomplete, analogy between this nineteenth centurysituation in Massachusetts and that which followed theProtestant Revolt in northern Europe. In bothinstances we have church edifices and other properties,historically associated with an older faith, taken overby the representatives of a new religious outlook.Doubtless the feelings with which English and GermanCatholics regarded the Anglican or Protestant use ofancient cathedrals and abbeys was not unlike thatwith which many orthodox Congregationalists of thelast century looked upon those Unitarian churcheswhich took over the old Puritan endowments. Thestate of mind of the orthodox party in New England,particularly as affected by the changes in Boston andCambridge, is perhaps best expressed in a well-known

'H. N. Dexter, Congregationalism as Seen in Its Literature, 619. Cf. for a recent state-ment from the liberal point of view, W. W. Fenn in Religious Hittory of New England,pp. 106-111. For the legal aspects of the case, see E. Buck, Massachusetts EcclesiasticalIiau>, chaps. IV, V and notes.

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passage in a letter written many years afterwards byHarriet Beecher Stowe:

When Dr. Beecher came to Boston, Calvinism or orthodoxywas the despised and persecuted form of faith. It was thedethroned royal family wandering like a permitted mendicantin the city where once it had held court, and Unitarianismresigned in its stead.

All the literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarian. Allthe trustees and professors of Harvard College were Uni-tarians. All the élite of wealth and fashion crowded Unitarianchurches. The judges on the bench were Unitarian, givingdecisions by which the peculiar features of church organization,so carefully ordained by the Pugrim fathers, had been nulli-fied . . . Old foundations, established by the Pilgrim fathersfor the perpetuation and teaching of their own views intheology, were seized upon and appropriated to the support ofopposing views."*

With due allowance for partisanship in tone andemphasis, Mrs. Stowe's statement gives a fairlyaccurate picture of the situation as seen by earnestupholders of the old New England tradition. Theperiod which the writer had in mind was that in whichher father, Lyman Beecher, probably the mostaggressive and effective leader of the orthodox partyin Boston, began his pastoral service in one of the newchurches lately founded to counteract the Unitarianheresy. It is fair to say that the temper in which heconfronted his opponents was not unlike that in whichthe Jesuit leaders of the Catholic reaction set them-selves to stem the tide of Protestantism in northernEurope.

The question which I propose now to discuss iswhether in the subsequent history of New EnglandPuritanism there was anything comparable, whether inmethods or results, to the sixteenth century Counter-reformation in Europe. Is the record, essentially, thatof a cause already lost, of an outworn system whichhad lost its vitality; or is there evidence of energyrenewed through conflict, of constructive achievements

'C. Beecher, ed.. Autobiography, Correspondence, etc. of Lyman Beecher, II, 110.

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of which the historian may reasonably be asked totake notice?

To this question there have been various answers.Leaving out of account the specifically ecclesiasticalhistorians who have dealt with the subject as inheri-tors, in some measure at least, of the Puritan traditionin its modernized forms, the most popular interpreta-tion of New England history at the present time issubstantially this: By the middle of the nineteenthcentury Puritanism was a largely spent force, per-sisting, if at all, only in its baser aspects. Referring tothe separation of Church and State in New Englandduring the first third of the nineteenth century, onewriter tells us that this "was the outward and visiblesign of a change that had long been taking place. Theold Puritan theology had been dying for many a day.Unfortunately, whereas the former faith had in manycases been an effective builder of genuine strength ofcharacter the sediment that was deposited when itdrained off held chiefly the dregs of some of its worstqualities . . . . The Puritan had possessed some sterlingtraits. His descendant became mainly Puritanical.His belief in himself as the chosen of God lingered longafter the relationship had probably become repugnantto the Deity; it certainly had to the New Englander'sfellow-citizens in other sections. " It is admitted thatNew England still had something to give which "wasto serve as a leaven in the educational and communitylife of many a western settlement in the wild daysahead"; but it is suggested that while "the moremediocre minds" believed it "incumbent on them tobe missionaries," it was the representatives of theliberal revolt who counted in the expanding Americansociety of the new generation.^ That, I take it, is aprevalent view among scholars ' and sophisticatedpersons generally who have given no serious attentionto ecclesiastical history, or have no special pre-

'J. T. Adams, Epic oj America, 158£f.

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possession in favor of Puritan New England. It maybe well conceded also that much of what has beenquoted as to the state of Puritanism in the middle yearsof the nineteenth century may, with some justice, beapplied to developments in more recent times. Never-theless, there is a good deal of reason to suppose that,for the two generations following that which experi-enced the Unitarian-Trinitarian controversy and itsimmediate aftermath, Puritanism was still very muchalive, that its less amiable traits were not more markedthan in earlier times, and that its influence on thecountry at large was not less strongly felt.

For the leaders of the Puritan Counter-reformation,as for their Catholic predecessors, a prime considera-tion was the formulation of a platform. They could,of course, appeal to no ecclesiastical body comparablein significance with the great Ecumenical Councilof the sixteenth century and there was no suchgenerally promulgated formulary as the famousTridentine Decrees of the Catholic Church. Therewas, however a definite and measurably successfuleffort to consolidate opinion on the orthodox side,uniting various schools of Puritan opinion—"oldCalvinists," " Edwardians, " " Hopkinsians, " to usethe almost forgotten terminology of the day—on thecommon ground of what was called "consistentCalvinism." One of the active promoters of thiseffort, Leonard Woods, later one of the first professorsin Andover Theological Seminary, wrote in 1805 tohis friend Jedidiah Morse of Charlestown, one of themost aggressive defenders of the older order: "If wecan only get all Calvinists together, we need not fear.Hopkinsians must come down and moderate men mustcome up till they meet. "

Massachusetts Congregationalism had no control-ling organization, for its cardinal principle was theautonomy of the local congregation; but as the

•Letter in L. Woods, HiOarv of the Andoter Theological Seminary, *56.

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Unitarian movement developed, a General Associationwas formed which offered a rallying point for thosewho held to the dogmatic positions of the Westminsterdivines. About forty years later, the expansion ofCongregationalism outside of New England and theformation of several new state associations led to themeeting at Albany, in 1852, of "the first council orsynod representative of American Congregationalismas a whole since the Cambridge synod of 1646-1648. "This Albany meeting brought together representativesof the old New England polity from churches in seven-teen states.^

If there was no central authority capable of imposinga single dogmatic statement upon widely distributedcongregations, the New England Counter-reformationwas extremely successful for a time in forming newinstruments for the defence of the "faith once de-livered to the saints." One important step in thisdirection was the establishment of publications, ofwhich the most important, perhaps, was the Panoplist,first issued at Boston in 1805 by "an Association ofFriends to Evangelical Truth " ; there were subscriptionagencies in other New England states, in New York,Philadelphia, and even Alexandria, Virginia.^ With aview to further concentration of forces this periodicaltook over in 1808 an older organ and became thePanoplist and Missionary Magazine. While providinggeneral religious intelligence, its prime function was touphold the standards of Puritan orthodoxy. Deploringthe tendencies of the time which led men, if theyprofessed the Christian religion at all, to accept it only

. "in a form adapted to their vitiated tastes," "com-bining the service of God and Mammon," the Pano-plist declared its unflinching adherence to "theDoctrines of the Reformation," as recognized "in thegreat body of the New England churches. " "These, "

•Walker, Hist, of the Cong. Churches, 332S, 3815; Dexter, Congregationalism as Seenin its Literature, 515. 516.

'The Panoplist, vol. I (Boston, 1806).

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continued the editors, "constituted the religious faithof our venerable forefathers, and by the editors areembraced, as the truths of God revealed in the HolyScriptures. Nothing manifestly inconsistent with thesedoctrines can ever be admitted to the Panoplist."^So far as these editors could do it single-handed, herewas a new Index Expurgatorius, in the spirit, if not theform, of that well-known Roman institution.

It was an article in the Panoplist, reviewing anEnglish account of New England Unitarianism, whichperhaps did more than any other single publication toconsolidate orthodox opinion and bring about adefinite alignment between Trinitarian and Unitarianchurches. The writer agreed with the more outspokenradical leaders that it was impossible for personsholding "doctrines so diametrically opposite" to be"fellow-worshippers in the same temple." The timehad come when the liberals should at least "permit theorthodox to come out and be separate. "

One of the most striking correspondences betweenthe Catholic and the Puritan Counter-reformationswas a new interest in the training of the clergy. Theestablishment of diocesan seminaries was one of thesignificant outcomes of the Council of Trent and, asalready noted, the Jesuit order made a unique contri-bution in this field—training up generations of clergywho could use the pulpit, the classroom, and theprinting press with new efficiency to defend the ancientfaith against its antagonists. The recognition of asimilar need was one of the outstanding features of thenineteenth-century Puritan revival.

In New England and in the country at large there ,had been as yet no effective provision for the pro-fessional training of ministers. There were professorsof divinity at Harvard and Yale; and in all the NewEngland colleges the training of religious leaders hadbeen accepted as a primary obligation. From time to

'The Panoplist, vol. I, "Preface."tlhid. XI. 265.

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time also an outstanding personality like TimothyDwight was able to exert a powerful influence on thethinking of young men who became leaders of theirgeneration in Church and State. Generally speaking,however, there was no systematic program of pro-fessional training as distinguished from the religiousinstruction offered to the student body as a whole.Such teaching as the colleges failed to supply wasprovided, much as in the case of prospective doctorsand lawyers, by the private instruction of older mem-bers of the profession, some of whom gathered aboutthem a substantial number of pupils. To meet the newsituation, however, a more extended and moresystematic curriculum was required, and an institu-tional life in which young men of common aims couldbe brought together, subjected to suitable intellectualas well as spiritual influences, and equipped for thecommon task before them. The election of a Uni-tarian to the divinity professorship in the oldest of theNew England colleges served to bring this movementto a head. Much correspondence had to take placeand a diflicult process of adjustment between conflict-ing interests and points of view before a real theologicalseminary was at last set up at Andover in 1808; onceestablished, however, it set a new standard in pro-fessional education.^ Judged on the basis of skillfuladaptation to the specific purposes for which it wasintended, this instruction was, and probably con-tinued to be for some years, superior to that which wasthen provided for students in other so-called learnedprofessions.

To the founders of this new seminary, as to thedirectors of the Jesuit colleges three centuries before,the thorough indoctrination of young men in accord-ance with historic standards of faith seemed a vitalmatter. For the Jesuits, the standard was set by thedecrees of church councils from the Council of Nicaea

'The correspondence on this subject, 1805-1808, is in L. Woods, Hist, of AndoverTheological Seminary, Appendix.

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to that of Trent. The Andover group went back to adogmatic formula of the seventeenth century—the"Shorter Catechism" of the Westminster Assembly,interpreted and elaborated in a longer doctrinal state-ment called the "Associates Creed," which had to besubscribed to by professors on their inauguration andthereafter at five-year intervals. These standardsthey must defend "in opposition not only to atheistsand infidels, but to Jews, Papists, Mahometans,Arians, Pelagians, Antinomians, Arminians, Socinians,Sabellians, Unitarians and Universalists, and to allheresies and errors, antient or modern, which may beopposed to the Gospel of Christ or hazardous to thesouls of men." Curiously enough, however, from atwentieth century point of view, this minute expositionof theological subtleties was supposed, while effectivelyexcluding all the above-mentioned heresies, to besufficiently comprehensive to furnish a kind of viamedia for at least three doctrinal schools, whose adhe-rents might nevertheless be accepted as "consistentCalvinists. "^

It would perhaps be far fetched to compare theregimen to which the New England seminary studentwas subjected with the "spiritual exercises" of theSociety of Jesus; and yet the two disciplines hadsomething in common. Leonard Woods wrote ofhimself and his colleagues in the Seminary that "whilewe attached high importance to literary acquisitions,we gave a still higher place to spiritual improvement. "All public lectures were to "be preceded and fol-lowed by prayer" and the Sunday sermons were tobe "devout, practical, doctrinal and pungent, ratherthan speculative and metaphysical. "^ Of interest alsoin relation to the more emotional aspects of religionwas the stress laid on "a true taste for genuine churchmusic." Students who had "tolerable voices" wereto be "duly instructed in the theory and practice of

doctrinal statements are printed in L. Woods, Hiai. of Andover TheologicalSeminary, 247ff. 257ff, 260.

'Jbid., 163, 260.

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this celestial art. "^ It would be a mistake, however,as in the case of the better Jesuit institutions, tounderrate the scholarly quality of the education pro-vided by the Seminary. The students were expectedto be, and to a considerable extent were, a carefullyselected group, normally college graduates; after aperiod of probation, they were expected to pledgethemselves so far as circumstances permitted tocontinue their course over á three-year period.^ Thefaculty during the next half-century included somevigorous personalities, capable of much more thanroutine classroom work.

Perhaps the most significant of the early teachers ina scholarly sense was Moses Stuart. Beginning with avery moderate equipment, he became one of thenotable promoters of Hebrew scholarship in thiscountry and a pioneer in the study of contemporaryGerman theology. Though Stuart and his colleagueWoods, the Abbot Professor of Christian Theology,took an important part in the literary controversy withthe Unitarian party, Stuart especially had a reputationfor encouraging free discussion in his classes. Indeedcomplaints were made that the Seminary did notsufficiently protect its students against unsafe ideasfrom Germany or elsewhere; instead they were intro-duced to "lax and infidel writers." Stuart, however,maintained that it was "a very mistaken prudence"which made "an Index Expurgatorius to a Library forthe use of theological students." Such a libraryshould not consist "only of those books the sentimentsof which are approved." One of the best knowncollege presidents of the middle nineteenth century.President Wayland of Brown University, though nothimself a member of the denomination to which theAndover faculty belonged, emphasized the substantialcontribution made by the Seminary to the improve-ment of classical scholarship in New England, through

'L. Woods, ífi«í. of Andover TIteological Seminary, 243.»J6»d., 13&-139, 242.

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the maintenance of exacting standards in the Seminaryahd through graduates who were appointed to chairs inthe colleges.^

The old seminary has experienced many vicissitudesin recent years, but for more than half a century itjustified the expectations of its founders. Within thefirst four decades of its history it sent out more thanfifteen hundred students and the geographical distri-bution of these graduates was even more striking. Atthe semi-centennial anniversary of the institution, in1858, it was pointed out that of the alumni who hadclosed their careers up to that time, a large majoritywere born in New England, but considerably less thanhalf had remained there. The majority had gone outto service in the West and in the foreign fields of Asia,Africa, and the Pacific Islands." The Andover idea ofprofessional instruction in theology was rapidly takenup elsewhere. Harvard developed its professorship ofdivinity into a divnity school. Yale, with its orthodoxconstituency in Connecticut and western Massachu-setts, took the same course, and its new school oftheology came to rival Andover as a prime agency ofthe Puritan revival, especially in New York and thewestern states. Meantime, other independent semi-naries were set up in New England at Bangor andHartford—the latter by a group for whom Yale wasnot sufiSciently conservative. This is not the place fora detailed account of the seminary movement outsideof New England; but it can at least be said that thedevelopment of systematized professional training forthe ministry was one of the notable products of thisPuritan Counter-reformation.

Again, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,ecclesiastical conflicts produced results of some signifi-cance for the history of education generally. Except

'Platnor ei oí.. Religious History oj New England, 72; addresses of Wayland and Bramanin Memorial of the Semi-Centenniàl (Andover, 1859); Greene, New Englander in Japan,9. Cf. W. Walker, "Leonard Woods," in hia Ten Neu; England Leaders.

'Memorial of the Semi-Centennial, 8, 241.

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at Harvard, orthodoxy continued to dominate NewEngland higher education. Yale, under the leadershipof Timothy Dwight, had established its position inthis respect and clergymen of the conservative schoolcontinued to hold the presidency in the New Englandcolleges generally. When Williams College had avacancy in 1821, it chose to fill it, Edward D. Griffin,one of the most strenuous of Calvinistic orators, aformer professor at Andover, and pastor of the mostaggressively orthodox church in Boston.^ The theologyof his distinguished successor, Mark Hopkins, was of aless rigid type; but it was still an essentially Puritanphilosophy of life which his powerful personalityimpressed upon succeeding generations of Williamsstudents; for the last thirty years of his life Hopkinswas president of the American Board. Dartmouthwas presided over for a generation by an Andovergraduate of 1815, the redoubtable Nathan Lord, whosefinal retirement in 1863 was due not to his conservativetheology, but to his persistent advocacy, even duringthe Civil War, of moderate principles on the slaveryissue. President Wayland of Brown, whose presidencycoincided nearly with that of Lord, was the head of apreponderantly Baptist institution; but he had spent ayear at Andover and in 1858, at the semicentennialanniversary of the seminary, he paid a notable tributeto Moses Stuart, his old teacher of Biblical exegesis.Besides clinching its hold on most of the older colleges,the Puritan reaction was a definite factor in theestablishment. of a new and aggressively orthodoxinstitution at Amherst. From its foundation in 1821until the Civil War, religious teaching of this kindprevailed, in the new colleges, revivals were a con-spicuous feature of college life, and a large proportionof its graduates entered the orthodox ministry.^ Itcan hardly be said that any of these New England

•G. H. Genzmer in Dictionary of American Biography, VII, 619-620; Woods, AndoverTheological Seminary, 147ff.

«W. S. Tyler, Amherst CoUege, especially chaps. I-IV, XIII, XIV.

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institutions contributed largely to educational theory;but the traditional conception of the college as aninstitution in which intellectual discipline should becombined with the inculcation of a definitely religiousoutlook on life was perhaps never more intelligentlyand more effectively carried out in this country thanby the generation of college men who came under theinfiuence of Mark Hopkins and his contemporaries.

This is not the place for recalling details of denomi-national history ; but evidences of the continued vitalityof the Puritan tradition through the middle decades ofthe nineteenth century are readily available for anyhistorian who cares to look for them. A striking illus-tration may be found in the ecclesiastical experience ofBoston. By 1810, all but two of the sixteen historicPuritan churches within the present municipal limitsof Boston had become Unitarian, leaving only the OldSouth Church and the First Church of Charlestown,presided over by the indefatigable and pugnaciousJedidiah Morse. Already, however, the reaction wasat work. In 1809, Park Street Church, on "Brim-stone Corner," was formed, not only to become thechief center of orthodoxy in Boston, but also to beclosely associated with the expansionist enterprises ofthis new "counter-reformation." The Park Streetorganization was followed in rapid succession by othersof the same school. Between 1808 and 1861, a littlemore than half a century, the Puritan tradition hadgiven sufficient evidence of vitality in this strongholdof liberalism to establish thirty-five new churches.^Statistics have a certain value; but they leave outanother important part of the story, which has beenfully recognized by distinguished writers of the liberalschool.

A few years ago Professor Fenn of the HarvardDivinity School pointed out in a lecture at KingsChapel two important facts about these ecclesiastical

•See table in Winaor, Memorial History of Boston, III, 415-420.

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1932.] A Puritan Counter-Reformation 37

divisions of a century ago.^ In the first place, thedirect tangible influence of the Unitarian movementwas confined mainly to eastern Massachusetts and asmall area to the northward, leaving Connecticut andthe back-country of Massachusetts very little affected.Secondly, this situation in the country had an impor-tant influence on Boston itself. In the middle decadesof the nineteenth century, the city population wasbeing rapidly recruited from the rural areas, whichcontributed a vigorous stock of young men andwomen. Partly because of the environment fromwhich they had come, partly because the constituencyof the liberal churches combined with its new theologya prevailingly conservative outlook on political andsocial issues, the newcomers, so far as they hadreligious interests at all, tended to gravitate towardthe newer churches which had developed in the Puritanrevival. There they found preaching by vigorouspersonalities, an effective use of church music, and aless rigid social tradition. No one realized this aspectof the development more clearly than the radicalspokesman, Theodore Parker, who criticised theliberal churches for failing to draw in the newcomersand serve their social needs. "Common policy," hewrote, "would suggest that course not less than arefined humanity. But they did no such thing. Theywere aristocratic and exclusive in their tastes, notdemocratic and inclusive. So they shoved off theseyoung country fellows, and now rejoice in their veryrespectable but very little congregations . . . Achurch of old men goes to its grave, one of young mengoes to its work. "2 Professor Fenn says much thesame thing in different language: "The Unitarianswere the cult of the arrived, but in orthodox churchesfilled with vigorous ambitious progressive youth fromthe countryside there was the worship of pilgrims."^

'Platner. Fenn et al.. Rdigiowi History of New England, 112, 113.«Quoted by Fenn, ibid, 112.'Ibid.

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Deprived of ancient endowments, and legally at adisadvantage under the decisions of the courts, theorthodox element lost interest in the old-church-staterelation and came to realize the superior vitality ofinstitutions which relied upon voluntary effort. Inthis spirit Lyman Beecher, who had at first regardeddisestablishment as a calamity, came to regard itas the best thing that could have happened in theinterests of the churches themselves.^

There is no purpose here to discuss the relativemerits of opposing theological systems, or even todisguise the fact that the so-called "New Englandtheology" of the eighteenth and nineteenth centurieshas had its day and ceased to be. It is obvious alsothat in point of intellectual and literary distinction,there was little in the output of the Puritan revival atall comparable with that of the liberal movement.What I have wished to emphasize, so far as New Eng-land is concerned, is, first, that while the old traditionhad during the first half of the nineteenth centurylargely lost its hold upon the social and intellectualélite—or in the language of the present day, in thecomparatively sophisticated circles—of eastern Massa-chusetts, it retained much of its vitality elsewhere. Itwas indeed stirred for a time to new energy by opposi-tion and continued to be an infiuential factor in thelife of the countryside, in the towns which wereconstantly being recruited from the country, and in thecolleges.

After all, however, as our present-day historiansought ,to realize more clearly than they do, the NewEngland of the middle and later nineteenth century,the influence of its characteristic ideas during thatperiod, is to be sought less in a small geographical areain the northeastern corner of these United States,than in the greater New England which came into

>C. Beecher, Autobiography, etc. of Lyman Beecher, I, 344. Cf. J. C. Meyer, Church andState in Massachusetts, chap. VIII; A. B. Darling, Political Changes in Massachusetts,38, 86, 87.

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being west of the Hudson River. This New Englanddispersion is, of course, a familiar subject duly recog-nized by Professor Turner and his successors amongthe historians of the West; but there are two aspectsof that dispersion which have received less attention,or been insufficiently emphasized.

There is, first, a significant relation, not merely acoincidence in time, between that migration and theCounter-reformation which we have been considering.Large-scale New England emigration into northernNew York began at the turn of the century, when therevolt against Calvinism was becoming formidable;and the subsequent mass movement of the Yankees in-to the "Old Northwest" came when the divisionbetween liberal and orthodox elements had hardenedinto a definite cleavage between two denominations.The areas, however, from which most of the NewEngland settlers came were those in which the oldertradition had not only prevailed but had taken onfresh vigor. It is doubtless true that western Puri-tanism developed a greater emphasis on the practicalaspects of religion as distinguished from speculativetheology; but its adherents were much less involvedthan were the New England Trinitarians themselvesin the later evolution of what came to be known as"liberal orthodoxy" as illustrated, for example, in theteaching of Horace Bushnell. In short, it was thespirit of the Puritan revival Which found expression inmost of the Congregational and Puritan churches ofthe Old Northwest. Their ministers were largelygraduates of the orthodox New England colleges,trained in the seminaries at Andover and New Haven,or later to some extent in western institutions foundedby New England graduates of the older seminaries.

A second fact of importance in this western phase ofNew England Puritanism is the continuing relation-ship, and interaction, between the parent communitiesand their offshoots in the West. Such an institution,for example, as Illinois College was not only founded

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by Yale graduates, the so-called "Yale Band," butcontinued to rely for sympathetic interest and financialsupport upon eastern friends. Its first president was ason of Lyman Beecher and had himself been pastor ofone of the new Boston churches before going to theWest.^ The progress of religion and education in theWest was reported to the headquarters of New Eng-land societies and duly recorded in official publicationsfor the perusal of past and prospective donors. Yaleand Andover kept up their interest in western matters.In 1843 nine seminary students at Andover werestirred to emulation of what their predecessors haddone and formed the Iowa Band whose activities didmuch to shape the educational, as well as religiousdevelopment of that State. When the seminary cele-brated its fiftieth anniversary in 1858, interest in thiswestern sphere of inñuence was a striking feature of theoccasion.^ Again, as Williston Walker has pointed out,it was to a considerable extent the desire of thetransplanted New Englanders to strengthen thecorporate spirit of the Congregational churches whichled in 1852 to the Albany Convention of that denomi-nation, the first general meeting of its kind since theCambridge synod of 1646. Clearly then, westernPuritanism not only looked back to New England forits origins but continued in vital contact with it.^

In the West, as well as in the East, the significanceof the Puritan revival for education, and notably forhigher education, must be stressed. Yale and Dart-mouth, Amherst and Williams, in the East, servedtheir graduates as models for the new institutionswhich they founded in the West. Western Reserveand Oberlin in Ohio, Wabash College in Indiana,Illinois College in Illinois, Beloit in Wisconsin, Iowa

'C. H. Rammelkamp, Illinois CoUege, chaps. I-IV. Cf. Turner, Frontier in AmericanHistory, 36, 354.

'Walker, The Congregational Churches, 374; Memorial of the Semi-Centennial, 33B; 57£f.'Dexter, Congregationalism as Seen in Its Literature, 515-516; Walker, 371, 384.

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College at Grinnell, and Carleton College in Minne-sota—all illustrate the extension to the West of theNew England tradition in education. During theformative years, Andover Theological Seminary sup-plied college presidents to Marietta and WesternReserve in Ohio, to Illinois College at Jacksonville,to Wabash in Indiana. It was estimated, that, by1858, Andover had trained an average of two professorsfor each of nineteen institutions of higher education inthe West and Southwest.^

The present leadership of the state universities in theMississippi Valley should not be allowed to obscurethe large part taken by men of Puritan training in thegeneral educational development of their respectivestates. Professor Caleb Mills of Wabash College, aDartmouth and Andover graduate, led in the fight fora free school system in Indiana, and after it wasestablished by the legislature became state super-intendent.2 John D. Pierce, a New Hampshire boywho, after graduation from Brown under FrancisWayland, became a Congregational minister and latera Presbyterian home missionary, is credited with aleading part in the inauguration of the Michiganeducational system, becoming its first state super-intendent.^ Calvin E. Stowe, Andover Seminarygraduate and professor, son-in-law of Lyman Beecherand his colleague at Lane Theological Seminary, wentabroad as an agent of the Ohio legislature to studyGerman education, and made a report which had amarked influence on the development of the commonschool system in that state. It is an interestingevidence of early concern with transatlantic scholar-ship, that in his student years at Andover and under

'Mem. of Semi-Cent., 60-62.«L. K. Matthews, Expansion of New England, 204-205; Andover TheoL Sem., Gen.

Cat.'Ibid., 232; McLaughlin, Higher Education in Michigan (Ü. S. Bureau of Education.

Circular of Information No. 4, 1891), 35-37, 99-100; Brown University, HistoricalCatalogue.

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42 Á?n('rican Antiquarian Society [April,

the influence of IVÍoses Stuart, Stowe translated a(îerman work on Hebrew history; this translation waspublished first in Andover and later in London.^ InIllinois, the faculty of the Yankee homo missionarycollege at Jacksonville became the centre of anenthuísiasíic and effective propaganda for the establish-ment of common schools. It was tliere aiul under theactive leadcri^hip of members oí the college facultythat the Illinois Teachers Association was formed.Five years after the state pjissed its first effectiveschool law, Newton Bateman, a graduate of lllin(tis('oUege and of i.ane Theological Seminary in the periitdof Heecher's presidency, became State Superintendentof Publie Instruction.- In short, there was a closeand important relation between the Puritan revivalof th(i early iiinetí-enth century and the etiueationalprogress of the Middle West.

Finally, let us consider briefly what is perhaps themost striking parallel between the Catholic Counter-reforniation and its Puritan analogue in the nine-teenth century, namely, its association with missionarypropaganda on a world-wide scale. It would, ofcourse, be a mistake in dealing with the foreign mis-sionary enteri>rises of Protestant Christianity duringthe past century and a half to overstress the specialrole of Xew iMijiland Puritanism. The early issues ofthe Panopli.^t magazine show clearly the interest whichNew Engländers were taking in the ¡Moravian missionsarnonji West Indian negroes, American Indians, andHottentots. Recurring items in the same magazine,under the head of '^Religious Intelligenc(\ " show thatthe editors were keeping their readers informell abolitthe work i)f the British missionary organizaiinns which

i ( l i ' u i ! i i ; i i ' , Huturi, f./ tie ;>•! (*• / .-taUf. V . 2 l i ) - l ' - ! T ; J , J i i h i i , litnt. of rh>? / / f V i r i r frm-

in'-'.widlh 'n. ('. i:. S t . i w t . \ r i . l , .Vi ; r . 1 S 2 S : .'id e d . . L i . n . i n i i . I M i l . I S!r ,«-c% r c p a r f Ui t iu -

Í1ÍISL1 ¡ I ' fM^l i t tuf wiiH r<'!>r¡jitfd by n r i l i T of -.hi- P p j i n s y l v a i i i ; ! U . i t i s c ^li i i r | l ^ ' •^• l 'n r .1 t ;v . ' ^

K' ¡\ K ' . i í i í i t i , ' • P u n t u i i h ü ' u í - n t ' P í i n Um F t i r m i i t i v c Y C Í I M uf l i l i i i o i ^ H i . ~ î o r y " í i n

II! . S ü i r . ' ¡ h . í l . So.- , í>iu;¡í,;.-(ÍL.íiíí, . ';•' ' ' .>), ;!:j.'-3;ä><.

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1932.] A Puritan Counter-Reformation 43

had come into existence at the close of the eighteenthcentury. It is quite eertain, however, that the processby which a general int<'rest in missions developed intoeffective action was elosely associated with otheraspects of tho Puritan revival. It was froîn collegesuruier the influence of that revival that the earliestmissionaries were recruited. The same group of menwho were active in such publications as the Panoplist,who served as ministers or laymen in the new (trthodoxchurches of Boston, who were associated with thebeginnings of Andover Theological Seminary, andsupported home missionary enterprises in the West,W(.'re also the promoters of the foreign missionarymovement.^

The American Board eame into existence in lSlO as acreation of tlie General Association of Massachusetts.The immediate, occasion, however, of Ihis formalaction was an appeal for advice from young men, thenstudents at Andover, who felt themselves called tomissionary service but were at a loss as to the next step.After the students hati been heard, the Associationproceeded to ecinstitute The Aiuerican Board of Coni-•mi.sf^wncrs for Fordf/tt Missions, charged with theresponsibiîit,y of ''devising ways and means, iu\dadopting and proseeuling measures, for promoting thespread of the gospel in lieathen Innds. " The personnelof the Board as originally constituted ineluded fiveministers, with four hiymen; and the assoelation of allthese men with movements already mentioned is ofinterest. i)f the five clergymen, Timothy Dwight,who as president of ^"ale had made that institutionone of the prime a^ieneies for the maintenance oforthodox Puritanism, was also a member of the firstBoard of Visitors of Andover Theological Seminary.A seeond, Samuel Spring, was a prime mover in the

'Aïi intcreatiüK pirhirij of thif! «niup, (rom thf; fmint of view of ¡iii <irlh<)ili)3: piirmay bi' íi.mnd in y. M, Worcchtcr. Liff and Lnbirta of Jiev. .Samud ir^rcearpr {2Bi>nlo!i, 18.52).

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founding of that seminary; and a third, SamuelWorcester, a Dartmouth graduate, had lost hispastorate in a Massachusetts country town becauseof his uncompromising Calvinism. Of the three lay-men, one was Governor Treadwell of Connecticut; asecond was Jedidiah Huntington of Revolutionaryfame; a third, William Bartlett, was one of the foundersand chief benefactors of Andover Seminary. Shortlyafterwards another layman, Jeremiah Evarts, who hadcome from Connecticut to edit the Panoplist, becametreasurer of the Board, and subsequently, as secretary,was for a time probably its most infiuential officer.

This is not the place for a history of missionaryorganization. What is significant for our purposesis the obvious fact that a system of thought so com-monly represented as dead or dying managed todisplay for the lifetime of three generations a quiteextraordinary energy. The new Board, chartered bythe Massachusetts legislature in 1812, in the face ofsome opposition at the time to sending good Americanmoney abroad, was within thirty years from that datespending more than a quarter of a million dollars in itsvarious operations. By 1841, there were eighty-sixmission stations. In Asia they ranged from theTurkish Empire and Persia, through India and Ceylon,to Siam, and China. In the Pacific, the Hawaiianmission was securely established and fast becomingthe dominant infiuence in the islands. A beginning hadalso been made in Africa on the West Coast and amongthe Zulus of South Africa. Under the auspices of thenew board, earlier missions among the Indians ofwestern Massachusetts and New York were extendedto the tribes of the South and West, and finally to theOregon country.''

In this, as in earlier parts of this paper, there is no

«J. Tracy, History of the American Board of Missions, chaps. II, III and paaaim; Walker,Congregational Churches, 324.

Tracy, American Board: W. E. Strong, Story of the American Board.

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question of the merits or demerits of the Puritan typeof Christianity as presented to geographically andculturally remote peoples, of the wisdom or unwisdomof these early efforts to carry the ideas of ProtestantChristendom, whether to races with ancient and highlydeveloped cultures, as in India and China, or to moreprimitive societies, as in Hawaii and Africa. What canbe shown is that the impulse of foreign missions in thiscase, as in that of the Jesuits, carried to remote partsof the world some of the most vigorous material whichcame out of the New England colleges and seminaries.The missionary adventure often made heavy demandson those who engaged in it, especially in these earlyyears—the mastery of difficult languages, the reductionof spoken languages to writing, delicate negotiationswith suspicious peoples and governments, the inaugu-ration of educational systems, and the communicationin some degree of western medical science and thepractical arts. All these things, quite aside from theprimary purpose of conveying a message not easilyunderstandable by men of alien traditions, called formore than ordinary force and intelligence. If, as eventhe friends of missions will concede, the representativesof Protestant Christendom have often proved unequalto such tasks, there have been others who, like theirCatholic predecessors, have displayed remarkable ver-satility in dealing with highly complicated problems.Whatever their errors or failures, no proper history ofmodern international relations or of the interaction ofeastern and western cultures^can be adequately writtenwithout including in it some record of this NewEngland activity overseas, under the stimulus of thePuritan revival.

The serious study of this aspect of New Englandhistory still' suffers from something like the old-fashioned distinction between "sacred" and "pro-fane" history. Much of what has hitherto beenwritten on the subject has had too much the character

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