The Remnant and Its Function and I Mission in the History of Reforms

Home , Dirck Coornhert

- T n ! C a n srun R tvow'rxou Su m

Vo wuz V III .

T HE R EM N A N T

M D Li . R U U ON ES . A. tt F S J , , .

Author o f S ad i e! i n My stical Religi on ! Sf irimal

LON DON

THE RTHMOR E RE LTD SWA P SS .

2 OXFORD RE W 7 , ST ET, J .

CONTEN TS

THE RE MNANT

THE E A DEA IN S A AH II . R MN NT I I I

THE E A IN THE N E E A III . R MN NT W T S T MENT

THE E O THE IV. LITTL CHURCH F S PIRIT THE MONTANIS TS

-" A FOURTH CE NTURY RE MNANT THE DONATIS TS THE RELIGIOU S

VII THE S P A A S A S . IRITU L FR NCI C N

V A E A OF THE WE AN D III . R MN NT T LFTH THIRTEE NTH CE NTURIES

I A E A THE E VA E Y X . R MN NT IN RHIN LL

’ THE COMMON MAN S ATTE MPT AT RE FORM ATION

XI THE EXPE E OF THE S P A . RIM NT IRITU L RE FORME RS

THE A E S EED XII . Q U K R

THE O OF THE E A XIII . FUNCTI N R MN NT

XIV THE S S O AN D S E E OF A E A I . MI I N RVIC R MN NT SS

PR EFACE

I TH S little book , written in the crowded days of a busy life and in one of the supreme crises of history , is an attempt to interpret in an untechnical style and manner the idea of the remnant and its function and I mission in the history of reforms . have gone back first to Isaiah and Plato, the early advocates of h0pe in the remnant then I a a h ve reviewed , with much restr int and of brevity, some the famous remnant I experiments finally have considered , again in the most compact compass, the historical signi ficance of the remnant idea and its value as a method of achieving social a ai and Spiritu l g ns . It would perhaps have been an advantage to some readers if I had expanded the study and worked out the historical movements in more detail and with fuller historical refer

ences . one I felt , however, that the definite idea which my book was written to interpret un could best be driven home in this direct , complicated way . Those who wish for more historical details will find them given in my S tudi es i n M sti cal R eli i on two earlier books, y g 8 PR E FACE and S pi ri tual R eformers o/ the S i x teenth an d n h tur s S eventee t Cen i e . In the present volume I have seized and presented the essential features of each experiment so that the reader might quickly see the Spiritual value of the h O e venture . I p the little book will increase ’ of the reader s faith in the results brave , sincere human effort and will enable him to unite with one of the fine Spiri ts of the last century ' l a le Say not the strugg e nought av i th , Th e la a n d th e d are ai bour woun s v n , The e nemy fai n ts not n o r faileth A n d as i n s e ma th g hav been they re in .

Haverford College ,

Haverford, Pennsylvania . THE REMNANT

E RE TH is , Plato says, but a very small remn ant of those wh o follow wisdom and who have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession ” i Hi o f ul it s . s account the general m ti tude as contrasted with his remnant is pessimistic and saturated with despair . They too are, he thinks , mad and too untamed to offer any aid to any good causes The wise man cannot expect to ﬁnd the masses his allies in any noble undertaking . He is for tun ate if they do not destroy the fruit of all for his efforts , and ﬁnally kill him stinging them awake and di sturbing their ease . We do not need to accept Plato’ s aristocratic j udgment of the multitude . He belonged to the patrician class , he looked down from above with the usual bias and prej udices of his isolated class and he was unable to be a sound j udge of human nature as it actually is in the best democracies . But after all, he is right in centering his hopes upon the small remnant It was not an accident that the two greatest prophets of the ancient

— — ! world Plato and Isaiah made s o much of the remnant in the formulation of * their h0pe for the better world of the future . Even if the multitude were vastly better in

’ I sh all d eal wi th Isai ah s remn ant d octri n e i n th e next c a ter h p . I O THE R E MNANT quality than Plato thought and better in ‘ t actua l of fac than they y are, the function the remnant would still remain distinct , important and essential . By the remnant used in the historical a sense , we mean the sm ll , outstanding group of persons who have vision of the true line of march for their age and people , clear insight into the under]ying principle of life and action , and a faith that ventures i everyth ng to achieve what ought to be . It is the small circle of those who give their mind to the things that are true and elevated and j ust and pure and lovely and of good * - report . A few a rare and chosen few on l travel ahead of the rest . They are wi ling f h to pay the price , in agony and su fering , whic is always involved in Spiritual advances . - They are hyper acute and sensiti ve to currents and forces which the others around them fail to observe and they are bolder than their neighbours in risking the seen for the unseen . They reverse the proverb about the two birds In the bush , insisting that the that are uncaught are better than the one poor thing ﬂuttering In the hand N ot all dreamers by any means make good remnants . There have been plenty of “ visionaries ” and ‘ ‘ zealots ” who have led conﬁdi n l their g fol owers astray, whose new

Jerusalems were delusions and who, by

' i li i an i v 8 S ee att e Arn ld t d th e Ph pp s . . M h w o s s u y of R emn an t i n his e sa en ti tled umbers s y N . THE R E MNANT I I

ai following iridescent r nbows, have lost the o al path f re progress for the race . It is not easy to indicate the marks by which o ne can discriminate in advance the sound di one remnant from the sordered , the wise prophet from the fanatic who is on a blind trail . The most convincing test of course n is the pragmatic o e . The sound remnant war Scores an advance , the way d remnant terminates at a mirage and arrives nowhere .

History holds the answer . Hindsight settles what foresight cannot solve . The dreamer wh o cannot translate his dream into some visible fabric which persists in permanent form must take hi s place with the failures while the dreamer wh o can make the world become malleable to the moulding power of hi s ideal and can build it into lasting shape takes rank among the successes . It is , however, inconvenient to wait for the testi r not mony of histo y . One must before the long experiment of the testing process h as u of been tried o t. The decision the con temporary must be made before the n in How retur s are all . can we tell reality from illusion , how can we know the wise idealist from the misguided pursuer of

! is nf . mirages There no sure , i allible Sign We search in vain for the sterling label stamped indelibly upon the genuine article . And yet there are some hints and clues which can be safely followed . It is n ot quite a -f ﬁft ﬁ t . blind guess , a y y hazard 1 2 THE R EMNANT

The safe guide , the true prophet , the u constr ctive remnant , builds on ahead of the experience Of the multitude but along lines already revealed and indicated by the O tested experience f men . The new pattern h as been suggested by the inherent demands Of the existing situation somewhat as the artist sees how to ﬁnish his creation so that the new part Shall harmoniously fulﬁl and

complete the part already fashioned . The remnant that is to advance the hope Of the world differs from the abortive one in that the former h as a gift for apprehending the n ormal higher traits of life , trusts them and

brings them into Operation , while the other is very apt to be caught in the swirls of the abnormal and to reveal the intensity and at the same time the eccentricity and wayward of ness of hysteria . Wherever the forces

life come into play , attended by social di upheaval and in vidual enthusiasm, there

will no doubt be some evidences of hysteria , but if a movement is to carry groups Of people to a higher moral and Spiritual level the leaders Of it must be unlike their fellows only in that they approach more nearly than to usual the norm and standard of full , of complete personality, and can make use powers not always available for human

action . A remnant of the hi storical type is what mutati on biologists would call a , a marked and successful variation from the habitual THE R E MNANT 1 3

order Of life . It breaks away from the ﬁxed and repeatable Species and exhibits novelty .

i . It brings a surpr se, and makes a new start n ot Generally , though always , it forms about a magnetic leader and is integrated by the creative power of his personality or by the dynamic force of the i dea Of which he i s the exponent . The little group , organised and fused by its leader and poss ess ed by its live idea, becomes a kind Of experiment station or social laboratory for testing the value of the truth that h as dawned upon r them . This truth is likely at fi st to be over f stated and to-raise the little band o advocates to the white hot state, but if it is some really constructive discovery which the world needs it will prove its worth in the original circle and will Slowly gather signi ficance and meaning through successive interpretations and through the corporate life which it produces and maintains in the group . In o f most cases , too, the value the new idea can be j udged and estimated by the reactions which it effects upon the parent-body from which the remnant broke away . A remnant h as not performed its legitimate service if it does n ot mature and ripen its i dea and finally carry it into the life Of the wider circle out Of which it came . Unity is such a precious thing and c ath o li city IS S O desirable that many persons can not pardon what seems to th-em the Si n of schi sm . They are sure to pre condemn the rebel 1 4 THE R EMNANT attitude whi ch is apt to characterise a al remnant . It is ways better , they insist , to reform any body from within itself, and to do it by quiet , gradual processes, rather than by cataclysmic and disruptive methods . In the abstract these persuaders to unity are right and it would be well if the world could move steadily upward by an unbroken pro gressiv e process ! but unfortunately there are times in the life Of institutions when every attempt at reform from within is suppressed and when nothing but a moral earthquake is effective . The Spiritual rebel who cares more for truth than he does for unity has played an important rOle in history and i his mission s perhaps not ended yet . Not all remnant groups have been definitely Of revolutionary and the rebel type, but for the most part they have in the long run felt themselves forced to sacrifice unity for the sake of preserving the fulness of the light whi ch seemed to be revealed to them . They have sometimes been rash and sometimes narrow , but they have on the whole per formed a service which deserves our careful study and our Sincere appreciation . Not the least of the services that the remnant groups have rendered is the di s cov ery which they have made and proclai med

Of the august authority Of conscience . They have repeatedly reminded a heedless world that Sinai is not in Arabia but in the heart of man . THE RE MNANT IDEA IN ISAIAH

THE remnant doctrine ﬁrst appears in the ai i ts writings Of Is ah . It had ground and - — origin in a semi pessimism a despair Of the race as a whole . It assumed that the vast maj ority of the people had gone hopelessly — astray a position which Plato also held . n ot They hear indeed but understand , and e se indeed but perceive not . Their hearts “ ” are ar fat , their e s are heavy , their eyes are — * Shut they will not turn and be healed . They are incurably diseased with sin and i s stupidity . There , however the doctrine i a small ma ntains , remnant , a holy seed , ath ered s that can be g out of the godless mas , the immense refuse, the great harvest of ni one weeds for bur ng . While from point of view the remnant doctrine seems a counsel ur al Of despair , like the s viv theory of

Nature of ﬁfty seeds sh e . Often brings but — on e to bear from another point of view h as it had very great historical importance, and over and over again the remnant groups on as have discovered, preserved, and passed , l see of we Shal , some the most precious tru-ths and ideals of our noblest faith of to day .

i a vi -1 0 Isa h . 9 6 1 6 THE R EMNANT

R W . obertson Smith has pointed out in his Pro hets o I srael irn ortant p f , the p service which Isaiah— the foremost Hebrew exponent of the doctrine—rendered when he gathered round himself a band Of faithful disciples who

accepted his Spiritual leadership , who dedi c ate d themselves to his ideals for the reali

sation Of a holy nation, and who , holding aloof from the course and policy of the mis guided nation waited in patience for God to demonstrate the verity of the vision of their prophet . The circle that gathered round Isaiah and his household in these ” di evil days , he says, hol ng themselves apart from their countrymen , treasuring the words of revelation , and waiting for J ehovah , were indeed , as Isaiah describes them , signs and tokens in Israel from Jehovah Of hosts that ” “ dwelleth in Mount Zion . The formation Of this little community was a new thing in the history of religion . Till then no o n e had dreamed Of a fellowship Of faith dis soc i ated al from all nation forms , maintained without the exercise of ritual services , bound together by faith in the divine word alone . It was the birth Of a new era in the Old Testa ment religion , for it was the birth Of the Church conception Of the , the ﬁrst step in the emancipation Of Spiritual religion from the - forms of political life a step not less sig niﬁcan t that all its consequences were not seen till centuries had passed away . The community of true religion and the political R E MNANT IDE A IN ISAIAH 1 7 community of Israel had never before been separated even in thought now they stood o f side by Side, conscious their mutual antagonism, and never again fully to fall back into their -Old Most historical scholars to day would hardly agree with

W . R obertson Smith that the formation of this li ttle community was a new thing in l the history Of re igion , but in any case this was , up to that time , the most outstanding - oi instance such a remnant , and when once di the Spiritual group , hol ng a definite faith of and possessed intense hopes , was thus m differentiated , it beca e , as he suggests , a permanent feature Of spiritual religion . ar as The ideals Of this e ly remnant , they set are forth in the message Of Isaiah , present many similarities to the ideals that have directed the aspirations of later spiritual is . fir groups There , st Of all , an intense — moral emphasis a call to make life and practice correspond with faith and profession . Ceremonial drops almost out of Sight as an “ ” empty thing . Tramping the temple is Isaiah’ s vivid ironical phrase for hollow performances which are supposed to be religious but which are utterly vain in e themselves . No o n in the long historical line of protestors against formali s m has said w sterner things What unto me i s the multitude of your sacrifices saith Jehovah I have had enough of the burnt offerin g slof - O ci t . 2 P . pp 74 5 1 8 THE R E MNANT rams and the fat of fed beasts and I delight n ot — oo or Of h e . in the bl d of bullocks , goats

When ye come to appear before me , who hath to required this at your hand , tramp my courts ! Bring no more vain oblations ! incense is an abomination unto me ! new s l moon and sabbath , the calling of as emb ies , I ou cannot away with Wash y , make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ! cease to do evil ! learn to do well ! seek j ustice , relieve the Oppressed , j udg e the fatherless, plead for the This same social and ethical emphasis appears throughout all the messages of this i God rad cal reformer Of existing religion . looked for grapes and His vineyard is brin g ing forth only wi ld grapes . He looked for j ustice but behold Oppression forrighteous ness but behold a cry from those who suffer ' through unrighteousn ess j What use i s “ ” there in professing relig ion if at the same time you are drawing iniquity with a cord and sin with a cart rope What effect will temple performances have if one at the same time calls evil good and good evi l if o n e puts darkness for light and light for d arkn ess i

The trouble with the nation , Isaiah insists ,

of . is downright stupidity , denseness soul My people will not thi nk ! Israel will not

- ' - 8 -0 ai a i 1 1 1 . ai a 1 . ai a . I 2 . Is h . 7 1 Is h v . 7 1 Is h v

2 0 THE R E MNANT itself as a whole proves recreant As a terebinth tree and as an oak , whose vital is substance within , may be cut down and yet Sprout up again , so this living tenth shall ’ be a holy seed . This remnant group that gathered around Isaiah was bent upon a complete and positive di reform of in vidual moral life , Of social l a al . k customs , and of nation ide s Drun en ness is portrayed in all its plain bestial tendencies and in its unescapable deadly “

f . e fects A tempest Of hail , a destroying as of storm , a tempest mighty waters over ﬂowing Shall cast down to the earth those n reeling , staggering , stammeri g drunkards and the nati on that Is guided by such foolish of stupid, blind guides who in the hour cri si s will g o and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken . T The ’ prophet s pictures Of drunkenness are n o more powerful in their grim humour than are the descriptions of the decadent fashions of fi the time . It would be dif cult to match this picture in the writings o f any later puritan moralists . Moreover , Jehovah of are said , Because the daughters Zion haughty , and walk with outstretched necks i and wanton eyes , walking and m ncing as w they go , and making a tinkling ith their feet therefore the Lord will smi te with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters Of

v i I . 3 . - - S ee e eci all c a ii i and I I I 2 1 2 . 1 sp y h p . xxv . v . s, 5 R E MNANT IDEA IN ISAIAH 2 1

Zion , and J ehovah will lay bare their secret parts . In that day the Lord will take away o f the beauty their anklets, and the cauls and the crescents ! the pendants and the bracelets and the mufﬂers ! the h eadtires anklech ain s and the , and the sashes and the u perfume boxes , and the am lets ! the rings and the nose j ewels ! the festival robes and the mantles , and the shawls , and the satchels -i the hand m rrors and the ﬁne linen , and the turbans , and the veils . And it Shall come to pass that instead of sweet Spices there Shall Of be rottenness and instead a girdle , a rO e -set p and instead of well hair, baldness and instead of a robe a girding of sackcloth i brand ng instead of beauty . Thy men Shall fall by the Sword, and thy mighty in the

of There is, furthermore , at the heart this prophetic remnant a moral horror of war and — a clear faith here uttered for the ﬁrst time, that war is eventually to be eli minated by the i l Spread of the Sp ritua , ethical religion , for which the remnant stands . It shall come to pass in the latter days , this prophet declares , that the remnant of Spiritual people shall become numerous and powerful enough to dominate the nation and through it to in ﬂuence the world , and the peoples every of where , by the dispersion light and the

Spread Of righteousness , Shall beat their swords into plowshares and their Spears - iii . 1 6 2 6 . 2 2 THE R EMN ANT - into pruning hooks ! nation Shall not lift l up sword against nation , neither Sha l they ’ learn war any In one of Isaiah s old most familiar passages , the order yields place to a new on e and the warri or is sup lanted by a wholly new type of hero ! the armour of the armed man in the

tumult , and the garments rolled in blood , ni for ﬁre for shall be for bur ng , fuel Of unto us son i s a child is born , unto us a given ! and the government shall be upon h i s shoulders ! and his name shall be called E Wonderful Counsellor , Mighty God , ver ’

oi . lasting Father , Prince Peace Of the increase Of his overnment and peace there ’g shall be no end . j The transformations of the world which this idealist sees coming in the future , in ” the latter time , are no doubt in his view ” of to be wrought by the zeal the Lord , by direct divine Operation , by forces not yet in evidence anywhere , but it is nevertheless to be recognised that they are to come through th e remnant and as a result of its faith fulness . This remnant is always the starting of point , always the ground hope , always the nucleus of the new world o f righteousness E ' and peace . very ideal picture which the prophet gives—when the earth Shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters — cover the sea presupposes a Spiritual i 11 As t i i s d i n a a t a a e i n i c Isa ah . 4 . h s foun gre p ss g M ah i v I -i t ld a ea to a e b ee a i i tual i d e l not a ( . 7) wou pp r h v n sp r a of ‘ - le et ut a ix . si ng proph b of group . 1 . 5 7 R E MNANT ID E A IN ISAIAH 2 3

e al r mnant , gathered about an ide leader , imbued with the Spirit of wisdom and coun sel and having righteousness for the girdle of his of loins . By the expansion and Spread this of Spirit , by the trium h this way of life ‘ p j ustice Shall dwell in the wilderness ! and righteousness shall abide In the fruitful ﬁeld , and the work of righteousness Shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and conﬁdence for ever ! and my people Shall abide in a peaceful habitation and in safe dwellings and in quiet resting

‘ But great as is the mission of the remnant , n as expressed in the writi gs Of Isaiah , greater still i s its mission as conceived by the un known prophet of the exile whose writings are preserved in the latter half of the Book of — - X . Isaiah chapters XL . L VI Here the hopes and ideals of the S piritual lead ers o f t E the na ion , Isaiah , J eremiah and zekiel , all of whom adopted the remnant doctrine , are raised to their full glory . It had already s been een by these prophets, especially by i n ot Jerem ah , that suffering does necessarily mean punishment inﬂicted by the wrath of

God , it may mean discipline , puriﬁcation and f for . preparation future service The su ferer , " th e Spiritual remnant a i cted for its faith and vision , may in the end redeem the nation , and save the people . This idea , I say , reaches its culminati on in the wonderful

’ w e x ii . I 6 I S Th e e t t o i t es i d al x x . Proph s great p c ur of rld c di ti are x i I -1 0 an d x ii wo on ons . xx . 2 4 THE R EMNANT passages which portray the suffering ” servant . Some regard the suffering Servant as a single al to individu , be identiﬁed of course with Christ others believe that the whole nation

is meant . It seems much more probable , - however, that the devout , God fearing , loyal , Spiritual portion of the nation i s here

described as a personiﬁed community , acting one f essentially as , and su fering to redeem the whole nation and to prepare it for a wider

world service in the future . Manifestly there is still in the nation a vast section that s ee does not , that has not heard or learned . It is n otyet perfected as an instrument of the

Lord . But within it there is a holy residue, f ai a su fering seed , a f thful remnant , that voluntarily will suffer for the redemption of the rest of the nation and vicariously bear si n the of the whole people . In this way the true Israel is to become the prophet-people Of the Lord, to endure and suffer for others , to travail for the spiri tual birth of the nation and to become a mighty redemptive force for the perfection Of the greater Israel and * eventually of the wider world of humanity .

Fo r th e d eli n eati o n of th e s uﬁ eri ng servant s ee especi ally c a ter li i -li 1i fo r th e rld -i nﬂuen ce s ee c a ter lx h p s . . wo , h p . THE RE MNANT IN THE NE W TESTAMENT

THE Pharisai c ideal was obviously a remnant or ideal . The party Of the Pharisees , the fi sect, as St . Paul named it, as it rst ar as appe ed, and in ideal it always remained, was a high-minded and serious endeavour s to form a true Israel within the larger I rael ,

of . a holy seed, prophetic the real nation This intense and devoted band of the faith

ful proposed to keep , to the j ot and tittle , of e the whole teaching God , the perf ct Torah hi w ch He had committed to His people . Others might perform s ome Of its commands and live by the word of God at times and set seasons, but they, the elect and separate , eccles i ola i n ecclesi a apart to be the , were to transmit pure and uncontaminated the

full revelation of the divine will , and they in the midst of a crooked and perverse

people were to be the perfect doers Of it . f Another interesting , but totally di ferent , remnant in New Tes tament times is to be foun d in the little group or groups indicated but n ot described in the early chapters Of ’ Luke s Gospel . These seem to have been tiny spiritual groups Of persons who did not feel religion to be a burden or a yoke but rather 2 6 THE R E MNANT

a j oy and inspiration . They formed their piety on the Psalms instead Of upon the legal i Of sect ons the Old Testament . They lived in hope and expectation , and cultivated, i while they were wait ng for a better world, a beautiful Spirit of faith and conﬁdence in

God , and they practised a method of love and - are good will towards men . They variously called the quiet ones in the land ” the ” “ oor in Spirit ! or the poor the

umble . They constituted the prepared circle to which Jesus came, in which He grew u s was r p, and to which His mes age fi st r in gi ven . It was a little flock all eady advance for the message of the kingdom and i inwardly respons ve to the good news . But in a wider and much more Significant way the primitive Church, which emerged R u after the es rrection , was the real New ” first- Testament remnant , the seed or fruit of the expected divine harves t . The first i Of Christ ans , who in the early chapters ’ o The A cts Luke s second bo k , are called of those the way , felt themselves , even more emphatically than had any other inner of circle the J ewish nation , to be a peculiar ’ “ ” ” people , a remnant , a true Israel r of withi n Israel . The fi st epistle Peter hi makes this idea , w ch is implicit in most

u ni . New Testament literat re, deﬁ tely explicit This writer declares Ye [who compose the r al Church of Ch ist] are an elect race , a roy ’ for priesthood , a holy nation , a people God s

2 8 THE R E MNANT

Pauline Epistles and the early apostolic i Fathers . There are wide variat ons , Of di f course, in these ferent interpretations of as the beloved community , my revered R teacher , Josiah oyce, has called the one apostolic Church , but they all agree in ul n partic ar, namely, that this i ner , intimate ,

beloved community is a Spiritual remnant , living and fulﬁlling its mission within a wider

world of men unillumined and unsaved . ” Of di s This inner circle believers , ” ci les p , or saints is called from a very E ccles i a n Of early date the , or co gregation ,

h or E cclesi a r . C rist , sometimes the in Ch ist ” out of Its members are elect, chosen the o of as th e greater b dy Of Israel , or the world ,

case may be . They form, as St . Paul says ,

at the present time and in the present world , a remnant according to the election of ” grace , and, he continues , those Of the election

have obtained the rest , which those who are hardened in heart and dull Of soul have * missed . A notable saying Of Jesus also contains the remnant idea Many are called ’ " al but few are chosen . j The Spiritu fellow i c ship , the l ttle ﬂo k , is declared to be smaller than the total number Of those who hear the message . The most characteristic thing about this ” beloved community, whether it be the Jerusalem group or the Pauline congre ati ons are g , is that the members of it - R m x i a e x x u I . o ans . 5 7 . t M tth w . 4 I N THE N E W TE STAME NT 2 9

as recipients , and the community a whole is a of ar recipient , an extraordin y experience Of the Spirit , who is thought Of in the main as the continued invisible presence of Christ . of The world knows nothing this experience , and , in the thought Of these writers, the wider circle Of the Jewish nation knows ” of th e nothing it , but every saint has demonstration Of the Spirit and ever) ! as congregation h it . If any man have—not the Spirit of Christ he is none Of Hi s h e belongs neither to Him nor to His congre i * i g at o n . Th s Spirit bears witness with the ’ believers Spirits that they are chi ldren of ” God ! it is thus that the cry of Abba , l Father, bursts forth in the sou t By this same Spirit the beloved community is baptised into one livin g body and made to ” drink Of one Spirit ! A baptism Of the

Spirit had come upon them , cleansing like ﬁre l and like a kind ing ﬂame , making the recipients of it burning and shining lights in O E see a world f darkness . verybody could al s that a new force was reve ed in their live , n was a new dy amic at work within them , and ,

though few in number and Of mean origin , they were irresistible conveyers of a new order . of These spiritual groups, or circles, the new i i fellowsh p , compos ng the local churches ” “ exi sting as ti ny islands in a vast sea of

unbelievers, were possessed of intense and

‘ ma o ns viii o m r x i i . r R u g t R ans viii . I 6 . I I Co . 3 . 3 0 THE R E MNANT

propulsive faith . The resurrection of Christ , was as demonstrated to them in experience , certain to them as was any fact which their eyes saw. Their faith in the resurrection i underlay all their other faiths . It was th s central faith that had turned their seemingly overwhelming defeat at Calvary into a victory by which at once they became more than on conquerors . By this event they were c v i nced n ow that Jesus , though cruciﬁed , was M n ow declared to be essiah and Lord . They had a future assured . Their ascended Lord who still seemed with them as a Spiritual presence , when they broke their bread and or gathered in their upper room, in their - for house churches worship , would soon visibly return and become the living Head of His Kingdom and would fulﬁl the age-long o hopes f the great prophets . Whether the interim were to be long or short , they were ' i already His , sealed with His Sp rit , endued with powers from Him, chosen to be His wi tnesses to the unbelieving world and c om missioned to enlarge the circle of the fai thful and to prepare for the near return of the

Lord . There can be no doubt that this vivid expectation of near return gave the

rImitiv e . p church a peculiar intensity It was, on the whole, a fortunate and providential illusion . One trembles at what would have happened if the bald truth which history has reveal ed had been thrust upon the IN THE N E W TE STAME NT 3 1

consciousness of this little remnant then , and if their fervid hopes had been suddenly damped by a Sight Of the actual facts . They did their work and they held their ground of under the great inspiration a consummation , near at hand and coming by miracle . They could die dai ly because their kingdom was pledged and assured . What would have happened if they had been forced to face the sin truth that the world , with its and sorrow, was to zigzag on for long centuries and that ’ ’ Christ s kingdom was to come so Slowly that each new generation would hardly discover any gain over the prec edi ng one ! What would thay have felt if they had realised that the prophetic hopes of a Day of the Lord meant only that every day i s a ’ Da o the Lord y f , in Short , that God s kingdom comes through the sifting processes and the slow march Of history Wh ere there was on e person who could ’ appreciate St . Paul s Spiritual discovery that was Christ already here, forever born anew S a in theh of s ints , reliving His life in

true beli ers , producing a new creation i u S O with n the so l, and making here and now o f an d a kingdom righteousness, peace j oy, there were thousands who responded to cruder conceptions and keyed themselves

up with apocalyptic hopes . Where there was one who could rise to the lofty message of ri of the Fourth Gospel that a Spi t Truth , mov in g as an invisible breeze from man to man , 3 2 THE R E MNANT would Spread through the world and guide r men eventually into all the truth , the e were multitudes who trembled as they thought Of a j udgment near at hand and who accepted the Church as an Ark of Safety in the impending storm of destruction . But the immense fact after all which was establi shed by this Christian remnant in the ﬁrst century was the actual emergence into of history of a new type life, a new order of society . It is a useless labour to try to prove that Christ founded a Church and established an ecclesiastical system that was equipped with infallible authority to transmit is the truth and to medi ate salvation . It equally irnpossible to trace back to the Galilean Master the vast theological system that later was supposed to be a necessity s for human alvation . But there can be no serious question that , as St . John says, * r c n r m Chri s g a e a d t uth ca e by jesus t. A new and j oyous discovery of God was made w . as through Him It not a deﬁnition of Him, not a new metaphysical account of the ex eri en ce Of Absolute, but a wholly new p

as . God a loving , forgiving Father Those who fully caught this idea— and the little remnant surely di d—were profoundly trans formed by it . It expelled at once from the of soul a whole army of fears . The yoke a l d ily work and toi , with fear and worry banished, became easy and its burden light .

i I . John . 7 IN THE N E W TE STAMENT 33

A new dimension Opened upward toward God for the soul and a new principle of relation oi ship , love and brotherhood between men ,

was established within their lives . In Spite Of intense hopes and illusory expectations that a new world was coming Of hi by miracle, nevertheless the members t s early remnant already were putting into actual Operation the moral and Spiritual forces by which alone a Kingdom of Go d

could come in a world like ours . They had found a living faith i n a living Go d they were proving the unparalleled power Of affection

‘ for a great Person ality wh o had loved them and given His life for them they were carried onward by an undi vided faith that God’ s reign was to be establi shed in the world ! they knew that their lives must even now exhibit th e moral and Spiritual traits Of the k nd expected ingdom , a they accepted as their method Of warfare the new way which their Master had introduced— the conquest of evil

by goodness , of hate and violence by patience of and love, error and darkness by light and

truth , and the empire of the world by the rsacrifice of self through love . THE LITTLE CHUR CH OF THE SPIR IT —THE MONTANISTS

THE Early Christians always cherished the ” ideal of a Church composed of saints . With their outward eyes they saw that the ” Church had Spots and wrinkles , and they

recognised that not only gold, Silver and i prec ous stones were builded into it, but

also hay, wood and stubble . Tares grew

among the wheat even from the very ﬁrst . And yet the early builders Of the Church

hoped all things, believed all things and expected the growing structure to be a of habitation God in the Spirit . That

boldest of all New Testament prophecies , the on e recorded in the Fourth Gospel He on that believeth me, the works that I do l and reater works than these shall Sha l he do, g he do f ed e , kin vivid expectation and b came

. U a glorious hope nfortunately, more and on more as time went , the Spots and ” e wrinkles increas d , the hay , wood and ’ stubble became evident . St . Paul s hopeful ” u hi s E for word , saint , sed in pistles any

member of the Church , came to be reserved

x i v . I 2 John .

36 THE R E MNANT that he is pushing all the time in the direction i f Of . order, stab lity and e ﬁciency His aim is always to weed out exercises which do not edify and to encourage those persons w o h have constructive capacity . The writers of the various Pastoral Epistles had a tremendous inﬂuence in the work of u of stabilising the Ch rch the second century . It is doubtful whether any other Single person did more to determine the changes n ow under consideration than did the remarkable writer who produced the three documents known as * First and Second Timothy and Titus . They were written to further the episcopal org am Sation of the Church and to establish sound doctrine . We are in another world from the ’

li . one fami ar to us in St Paul s correspondence . The most interesting Of all the great organisers of the early time was Ignatius Of f 1 1 0 Antioch , who su fered martyrdom about A D w . He as apostolic in Spirit and a man of real constructive genius . On his way from Antioch in Syria to the amphitheatre in R ome where he was to face the beasts he wrote his impassioned epistles to the Churches of the di stricts through which his travels of took him. They all emphasise the need an authoritative organisation to give the fi Churches stability , ef ciency and power . DO nothing , he enj oins, without your ” bishop . R everence your bishop as though It seems likely that they con tai n fragments o f gen ui n e le ri tte b aul t in t ei r re e m t e tters w n y St. P , hough h p s nt for h y re e m i i s a vid ently second century co pos t on . THE MONTANISTS 37

he were Jesus Christ , is his message . He sees no future for a Church whi ch has a loose and mobile organisation and an uncertain hi and shifting teac ng . If the Church is to bod all al be a y at it must have a Head , a re wh o Head , a visible Head , Speaks with an authority that no on e can question or doubt . This was the di rection in which the sec ond w of century as travelling . The tendency the age was towards centralised organisation . “ The fear Of heresy and of false teach ing made the Church turn to those who were believed to be empowered by ordin ation to nf hi Speak i allibly for the rest , w le the growing belief in the magical efﬁ cacy of the two sacraments vastly heightened the irn portan ce of the perso ns who were ordained to ad minister them . The country neighbour hoods and the Old-fashioned members were not as resigned to these changes as were the city congregations and those who emphasised i eﬂi c enc . progress and y A protest , if it were to al be made , would most natur ly be made in the rural districts, and such a protest, in fact amounting to a revolt , did come and came largely from the country sections . was The movement initiated by Montanus , a Phrygian , about the middle of the second century . Montanus was subj ect to unusual psychi c experiences and felt himself to be the i Of ri chosen nstrument the Holy Spi t, the

t . Paracle e It seemed to him , on the greater

Itﬁ s m a e i Bi s R me i n 1 r t ca e to the tt nt on of the hop of o 77 . 38 THE R E MNANT

n occasio s of divine incursion , as though his own personality were obliterated and as though the Spirit completely possessed him and made him the passi ve medium of f revelation . The scanty accounts o the ecstasies of Montanus indicate that he pro ph esi ed in a manner quite like that of

the ecstatic Speakers in the primitive Church , hi as St . Paul describes them in the Corint an E l pistles . He was soon fol owed in this type Of prophetic ministry by two women i or prophetesses named Prisc lla , Prisca , and i Max milla . They were greatly revered by the Simple Phrygian people and their revel ati ons were believed as infallible oracles of ” truth . It seemed to these prophets, and it seemed no less to the people who listened a to them, that a new dispens tion had come . The greater things that had been promised now s were to be realised , they believed , becau e the Spirit had come and was Speaking directly

to them and through them . They assumed at once that God intended to create a Spiritual Chu rch of prophets in f place of the systematised Church , o ﬁcially governed and directed by bishops, and they announced the progressive character of revelation in contrast to the static form that was accepted as ﬁnal in the Great Church . They declared that revelation had always been progressive and marked by advancing stages ! a legal stage of di scipline for the infant world ! a second stage for the world in the THE MONTANISTS 39

period of its youth ! a stage of parables and

commandments, when the great Teacher said to his immature listeners ! I have many thin gs to declare unto you but ye are not ready for them yet and finally a stage in which rst-han d revelation is fi , and comes to its mn cul i ation and complete glory . This last stage had now arrived , the new prophets G o d proclaimed , and Speaks henceforth i s directly with His people . The Church now ” to be a Church Of the Spirit . This enthusiastic faith was very contagious and Spread with amazing rapidity . Whole districts were swept with the fervour . The a greatest churchman of the age , Tertulli n — (born about I 4S died 2 2 0) was wo n to its support and he became the foremost exponent its to o of ideals . He , , declared that truth i s progressive and that revelation advances . i s Nothing without stages , and the Holy Spirit is ever advancing towards better thin gs He had been on e Of the greatest or amsm g g geniuses in the Church . He had brought the finest legal gifts of the age to bear o n the formulation o f the ecclesiastical system and now he threw himself with all the intensity of his Carthaginian nature into the movement to create a Church of the Spirit which would supplant the Church Of priests and bishops . The Great Church , however, kept on its way unconvinced and the n ew prophecy never succeeded in becoming

On the ei li n o i r i n s c a . i . V g f V g , h p 40 THE R EMNANT — more than a remnant a Little Church of the Spirit , or Of the Spirituals , as the

Montanists called themselves . This Special remnant stood for some very irn orta p nt truths and principles . They as maintained, we have seen , that revelation i n is continuous and progressive . They sisted upon the equality of the sexes in all religious matters . Their prophets were women as well as men and they allowed their Spiritual women to baptise and to administer to i n the Eucharist . They endeavoured augurate a Church wholly c omposed of Spiritual persons in direct communion with o G d . They were eager to check the growing tendency towards secularisation and they determined to mai ntain purity of heart and Of life from the contaminations the world , and a rigid standard Of moral restraint . Their aloofness from the world made it natural w for them to emphasise the ickedness Of war , as remnant movements have generally done , ’ and on e ﬁnds in Tertulli an s writings some of the most famous of the early testimonies against war . The most powerful testimony against war which he wrote is found in his treatise called De or M A D C ona i li ti s 2 1 1 . . , written in in defence Of a Christian soldier who had refused ’ to wear a garland on the E mperor s birth day . This treatise was written after Ter l tu lian had allied himself with the Montanists, but it must be remembered that he was THE MONTANISTS 41 strongly Opposed to war even in his pre

Montanist period, and he frequently quotes the words Of Isaiah about beating swords into ploughs and Spears into Sickles . The passage to whi ch I have referred above i s as follows

And in fact , in order that I may approach al r i the re issue Of the milita y garland, I th nk it has ﬁrst to be investigated whether military

Service is suitable for Christians at all . of i Besides , what sort proceed ng is it , to deal with incidentals, when the real fault lies with what h as preceded them DO we believe that the human sacramentum may lawqy be added to the divine and that a Christian may give a promise in answer to h another master after C rist , and abj ure n father and mother and every kinsma , whom even the Law commanded to be honoured and loved next to God , and whom the Gospel also thus honoured , putting them above all save Christ only Will it be lawful for him to occupy himself with the sword, when the Lord declares that he who uses the sword Shall perish by the sword And Shall the Son unﬁttin of Peace , for whom it will be g even P to go to Law , be engaged in a battle And al i s hi s Sh l he , who not the avenger even of own n irn ri son wrongs , admi ister chains and p ment and tortures and executions P Shall he n ow go on guard for another more than for ’ or Christ , Shall he do it on the Lord s Day , when he does not do it even for Christ And 42 THE R EMNANT

Shall he keep watch before temples, which he h as renounced and take a meal there where the Apostle has forbidden it And those whom he has put to flight by exorcisms in al t the daytime , sh l he defend them at nigh , leaning and resting upon the pilum with which ’ Christ s Side was pierced And Shall he c arry i s a flag , too , that a rival to Christ And for Shall he ask a watchword from his chief , when he has already received on e from God al And when he is dead , Sh l he be disturbed by ’ — the bugler s trumpet h e who expects to be roused by the trumpet o f the angel ! And h n o t shall the C ristian , who is allowed to burn incense, to whom Christ has remitted of the punishment fire , be burned according to the discipline o f the camp ! And how many other sins can be seen to belong to the functions Of camp life— Sins which must be ’ explained as a transgression of God s law . ’ The very transference Of one s name from the camp Of light to the camp Of darkness i s a

. f transgression Of course the case is di ferent , if the faith comes subsequently to any who are already occupied in military service , as was, for instance , the case with those whom

John admitted to baptism , and with the most beli eving centurions whom Christ approves ! and whom Peter instructs all the same , when faith has been accepted and Signed , either the service must be left at once , as h as or been done by many , else recourse must

An allui Co r ii i I o . s on to I . v .

44 THE R EMNANT would positively indicate that the Church did n ot consider him a member Of the hated sect . But he lived in a Montanist region and his attitude toward war strongly reﬂects that of Tertullian . - When he was twenty on e he was brought - before the pro consul to be initiated into to military service . He refused accept the ’ - soldier s badge . The pro consul endeavoured

to change his mind and to remove his Scruples,

but without effect . I cannot serve as a ” soldier, the young man declared , I cannot ro do evil ! I am a Christian . The p

consul , in the usual persuasive fashion , told him there were many Christian soldi ers in the

army and named the names of some Of them . ” for They know what is ﬁtting them , mil Maxi ian replied, but I am a Christian , d o and I cannot do evil . What evil they ” d o who serve as soldiers ! asked the pro ”

l . a was consu Thou knowest wh t they do, ” su of the cient answer the unmoved youth , who thereupon was sentenced to death for his faith . as was Montanism a movement , not ” altogether an advance . There were many

imperfections inherent in it . It never suc ceeded in producing any great prophets who could expound in a powerful fashion the essential principles and ideals Of Spiritual religion . Its prophecy was Of the trance

and ecstatic types . The man went out for

the Spirit to come in . It fell easily into an THE MONTANISTS 45

of al intense expectation a milleni age , and some Of its prophets actually saw the new al J erus em hovering in the air , about to o descend t the earth . It took an excessive n bent towards asceticism, consideri g marriage unsuitable for saints and glorying in the stern was conquest of normal appetites . Its range too narrow and contracted for its leaders to have builded a Spiritual Church for the cen turi es to come . But it uttered an important protest against stiffness and formality in the

Church . It made a strong challenge to the alarming growth Of ecclesiasticism and secularisation and it boldly announced the reality of the living , Speaking , revealing

Spirit . However else they may have failed they stood the test of martyrdom with a fear lessness never surpassed by the members of any other remnant . Their books were destroyed they themselves were thrown to the beasts or were burned up in their houses and meeting-places they were exterminated as though they had been dangerous ests . Their story h as come down to us most entirely in the writings Of their enemies and traducers . One narrative Of martyrdom , told by a sympathiser and friend of these brave and blessed martyrs , a story still fragrant u l with the ardo r of holy ives , has come down our con to us , and reveals to generation their stancy in suffering and their faith in continuous ‘ — Th ss i n Per etua revelation e Pa o of S t. p ﬁ

The A cts o the art rdomo er etua and Feli ci tas f M y f P p . 46 THE R E MNANT

The Montanists have Often been called ” Second Century Quakers . They were and they were not . They testiﬁed to the fact Of the presence Of the Spirit Of God in the souls for of men , they called a life that answered to profession , they championed the equality of women with men and they undertook to build a Spiritual Church , but they Show the al limitations of their time and age , the f se hopes and expectations of chiliastic dreamers and the erratic traits of most ecstatics . They could hardly have disciplined and spiritualised the new pagan races which were overrunning t c on the world, hey lacked the necessary structive power to be sure transmitters of was the torch o f truth . Their mission a mission Of protest and challenge and they i performed it . They d ed , but they brought once more to consciousness the essential truth that God is Spirit , ever present , ever

‘ rev ealin ev er living , ever g , teaching , and the source o f all Spiritual authority and power .

This truth many times waned and grew dim , but it never wholly died away again and was revived repeatedly by the Spiritual successors of the Little Church of the Spirit . A FOUR TH CENTUR Y R EMNANT— THE DONATISTS

I N Donatism we Shall study an interesting n attempt , repeated ma y times in later history , to resist the secularisation of Christianity , on its e and, positive Side , to s cure a holy

h . C urch , a Church of saints The leaders of the movement were convinced tha t the n pure seed of truth and life , pla ted in the was Of world by Christ , in danger being lost through the growing tendency in the Church to make compromises with the world and to adj ust to the encroachments Of the State .

They represented an attitude Of rigour , a puritanic Spirit , a determination not to level of down the ideals the Church , even if their position of protest involved a division of

Christendom into two types of Churches . The deeper issues were not well defined at as im first , but they became clarified the plications of the two Opposing parties were thought out and debated , until with the course of time the fundamental nature of the Church itself became the real issue . The controversy began over the status Of Christian 0 ci als who had failed to stand the test — of persecution the persecution under Dio cletian (Emperor from 284 to The 48 THE R E MNANT

ar strict p ty , later called Donatists , insisted that a surrender Of faith under persecution indicated an original weakness of faith . The Diocletian persecutors demanded the offi cials Of the Churches to deliver up their sacred books and writings . If they yielded and con formed to the demand they escaped uh harmed ! ii they refused to yield they were in tortured, mutilated and, some cases , i k lled . Those who yielded were called tradi tors tradi tors , and it was against these s that the strict p arty Opened i ts fight . The e early puritans glorified martyrdom ! they welcomed the sifting tests which Showed who was true Christian and wh o was Sham Christian they claimed that the real Church must be limited to those who could stand the uttermost tests and that no others Should be counted as belonging in the circle of the faithful . There was much that was petty and personal in the century of controversy and we shall not find one side wholly right and n or one the other Side wholly wrong , party magnanimous and Spiri tual while the other was essentially mean and crude . Both Sides were partly right and partly wrong ! both raised h alf-truths to the height Of eternal realities, and the contest was attended with much tragedy and havoc ! but in Spite Of this the aims of this particular remnant are quite worth the attention Of the modern world and will repay our study . THE DONATISTS 49 The controversy arose in the first instance over the consecration Of a bishop to succeed Mensurius o f di , bishop Carthage , who, ed ili a u in 3 1 1 . Caec n s was elected to the “ ” vacant se e . He was consecrated for

ﬁ i A tun a . his of ce by Fel x, bishop of p g Caecili anus had many Opponents who were determin ed that he Should not bec ome bishop . They forthwith attacked the validity Of his consecration on the ground that the bishop Of Aptung a who consecrated him was

tradi tor . a , and therefore no true bishop It was further rightly or wrongly asserted ae ili an s r that C c u himself was a tradi to . In any case the Opponents proceeded to pronounce the see Of Carthage still vacant and they elected Marjori nus bishop and had him forthwith consecrated . Thus the of confli ct Opened . The details the contro v ersy may be left to Slumber and we Shall n o t nee d here to di scuss at length the minor personalities who figure in the schisma tic struggle . It is enough for our purpose that l Donatus, Often cal ed by his sympathisers , ” the great , was the leader of the remnant t orin u par y . He succeeded Marj s as Donatist bishop of Carthage in 3 1 5 and gave his name to the movement . Augustine of Hippo stands out as the great Opponent Of the remnant towards the end of the struggle nearly a century later . North Africa throughout the conflict was the centre of the controversy , though 56 THE R E MNANT

Donatism was never closely conﬁned to one

. of area It became, with the development issues, a widespread demand and a rallying movement for a Church separated from the influences and contaminations of the world . for The conversion of Constantine, which the time ended persecution , seemed at first a great providential event . The conversion of the famous warrior was quickly glorified by legends and to the vivid imagination of

as . the time he seems to have been met , St old Paul had been, and turned from the course of his life into a divinely chosen path . However the conversion may be explained it worked a maj or revolution in Christi an f o history . It Opened the door at nce for the greatest expansion of Christianity that had ever occurred . The imperial head of the world was now himself a Christian instead of nl an Opponent . He not o y proclaimed the toleration of Christianity , he further indi cated that acceptance of the faith was the sure road to secular promotion . Multitudes ﬂocked in Short order to the Christian standard . The old gods were abandoned and the God of the Christians was adopted with the eas e of a popular election . The only trouble was that the transfer was too easy and too superﬁcial . Many of the new converts had only a thin veneer of Christi anit as y , beneath the covering they were pagan as before the change which was hardly more than a change of name . Old gods and

5 2 THE R E MNANT

It was understood that great leaders in the Church were often morally unsound was persons . It the growing custom to make little of the weaknesses and failings of indi vi dual men o n the theory that ordination of carried with it an obj ective power, a kind f magic , which made the sacraments e fective and the sacerdotal performances efﬁcacious regardless Of the real character of the person

who performed the acts . The Donatists

were the persistent enemies of that theory . They were against the entire system of ob ecti ve e ects j ﬁ , which was transforming the Church in to a great mechanism for mediating

grace .

St . Augustine , the most determined Oppo of nent the Donatists, in his powerful assaults an d upon their position, became the advocate defender of the Catholic Church as the ih dispensable instrument o f salvation and the

medi ator of grace to the lost world . There one u is, he argued, only Church , the aug st and authoritative ecclesi a which Christ came

to found and which , by uninterrupted

succession through ordination , can be traced

back to the apostles as the ﬁrst bishops . No on e can possess Jesus Christ the Head o f n or Hi s the Church , participate in grace , ’ nl i s u ess he belongs to Christ s Body , which o f the Church . The sacraments the Church , he contended , belonged inseparably to this mysterious body and through them grace is

medi ated to men . They are efficacious THE DONATISTS 53 through the magical power bestowed upon the priestly celebrant by his ordi nation and they work independently of the subj ective of e or disposition , either the r cipient the celebrant . They are holy in themselves , when they are rightly performed by the ordained mediator . This i s the obj ective theory in its naked i s Simplicity . It presented and defended ’ in Augustine S famous books against the ! On Ba ti s m A n swers to Peti li an Donatists p , (a contemporary Donatist) and On the Cor r c i on he Donati s s e t of t t . In this view th e holiness of the Church i s superior to and independent of the holiness of character in the actual lives o f the u membership of the Church . The Ch rch , i Spelled w th a capital , is an indescribable al entity , above the empiric church , a super f efli cac i ts own man a fair, which has an y all , unhampered by the blunders and moral its weaknesses of human ministrants . It was against this objecti ve construction l s that the Donatists were arrayed . Ho ine s w for them as actual holiness of character . It was something concrete and incarnate in a living person . They were calling , however — for . feebly , a religion of life for moral effects They proclaimed the necessity of becoming — - another man a new and heavenly minded — man if one expected to exert Spiri tual power and influence upon others . The ordained is n ot person , according to them , made a 54 THE R EMNANT

is superman by hi s ordination . He raised higher than hi mself only through moral and I Sp ritual agencies . He is what his moral ” i cac of hi s character makes him . The e y ministry is settled by what he is . The Church e can be holy only if the members ar . The whole is equal to the sum of the actual parts .

‘ Its stock of grace is not an Obj ective deposit to be mysteriously drawn upon and medi ated it is measured by the dynamic quality of life in the organic fellowship which constitutes the Church . The Donatists often grasped their central idea inadequately and they were like most puritans more c on i rmations cerned with negations than with a , but they were trying to be the champions of a living Church Of transformed and Spiri t uali sed men and women , who have become children of God and recipients of the Holy

Spirit .

They often lacked consistency . They were Opposed to all dependence on the secular state and yet they eagerly appealed to Constantin e to secure his support and induce him to v alidi fy their claim . They held a very lofty theory of holiness of life but they di d not always preserve it in their ” i ul di c t relations with men . They found it very hard work to love their Opponents and they sometimes used methods of persuasion of an unspiritual type . They endeavoured to eliminate the Spurious supplements to Spiri tual religion and to return to the pure word of life THE DONATISTS 55 and to the convincin g force o f actual good on ness . In theory they elevated the Sermon the Mount and called upon men to live and to ur love like the pattern Fig e, Jesus Christ . But the fourth century in Carthaginian Africa was a difﬁ cult epoch in which to build a li teral God i kingdom of , and even Donat sts some ti mes forgot their lofty ideals ih the stern al conﬂict with the actual and the practic . It was worth something to have a clear voice s rai ed, in this crisis of compromise and of i secularisation , against the danger tak ng the line of least resistance and we owe a debt of gratitude to those hard-pressed Donatists for their endeavour to preserve in the world at least a remnant of Christians wh o under took to make religion consist of purity of heart and of the moral power of life . THE R ELIGIOUS

THE separatist movements which we have been following in the two previous chapters were both protests against the secularization of Christianity . The tendency to conform to the standards of the world , to adj ust by compromise to the prevailing ways of life , to translate Christianity through R Greek philosophy and oman organisation , began earlier than most persons usually suppose and , though Christianity never levelled all the way down , the conforming tendency carried the Church very far away l from its primitive ideals . Outward y the Church grew stronger and more potent each year ! inwardly i ts conquests were not S O of evident . The experience God as the of surest of possessions , the consciousness Christ’ s presence as the life Of the fellowship f had waned . The demons tration O the Spirit was not felt as it formerly had been . Instead of aiming to have these glowing experiences o n men were content to get with substitutes . An intellectual theory about the Trinity slipped into the place which had once been ﬁlled by the warm and intimate knowledge

Of God manifested in experience . The grow ing emphasis upon intellec tual formulation THE R ELIGIOUS 57 of Dogma steadily pushed direct experience into the background and thinking rose to a place distin ctly superior to inward com munion and worship . The Church even in the second and third centuries had discovered the immense possibilities of expansion and al it had already acquired imperi ambitions . If it were to carry i ts gospel of salvation to i t use all men and to all lands, must the languages of the world and the culture of the world , and consequently it must take as well as give . The Montanists and the Donatists had suddenly awakened to what was happen the original purity of life vanishin g . They saw the Church steadily approaching the ways of the world . They were convinced that Christians were to be holy , were to live like Christ , were to practise they ideals of the Gospel , but they were equally convinced that it was not being done .

They tried , but they tried in vain , to stem the waxing tide of worldliness . They made their valian t venture to restore the Church of the living God and to keep it separate from the soilure , the corruption and the con tamin ati on of the empire . We Shall now c ons1der another venture of a wholly different type— the attempt of the hermits and monks to create a Spiritual remnant within the Church . They proposed to remain in it but notto be like it in Spiritual quality . Without separating from the com munion and fellowship of the Church they 58 THE R EMNANT would make a convincing demonstration of what Chri st means a Christian to be ” ul ar ex cellence they wo d be p the religious, the peculiar people of God . They resolved to to ﬂee utterly from the world , renounce it , i to have done with it and with all ts ways .

They would know nothing , aspire to nothing i which earth could give . They would l ve without home and family . They would not marry n or give in marriage . They would obliterate natural instincts . They would forego the blessedness of human love and the o j y and intimacy of family ties . They would turn all their powers Godward . They would live as though only Go d besides them selves were real in the universe . He Should have them wholly and utterly and they would have Him as their only treasure . They would maintain in all its undi mmed lustre the saintly quality of the Christ-di rected life whi ch had been the passion of the ﬁrst

. ul followers They wo d live . not to eat nor n or to make gains, to accumulate even n or knowledge , to govern others, but to adore and contemplate God . They would ﬂee not only from the world but they would ﬂee even from the visible Church with its compromises . They would be God’ s men alone and they o n would keep holiness alive earth , in their l lonely cel s , though it might vanish every It i s n ot where else . impossible to feel a

ll t. thri-over the heroism of this experimen Self cruciﬁx i on could go no further. This

6 0 THE R E MNANT

kind . Some lived , or tried to live , on high pillars , raised far above contact with earth , u exposed to s n and storm . Others formed communities in which they practise d obedi ence to stern rules of discipline and under as took to create a holy fellowship , a model for a better age . - In the West the world ﬂight movement began much later and was always of a different type from the Eastern forms . It was more thoroughly organised and much more organi cally bound up with the life and development was in E of the Church than the case the ast .

St . Benedict of Nursia in Italy in the Sixth century was o ne of the great creators of monasticism in the West . He saw the l i so dangers attaching to the hermit ife , to lation , solitude and absence of occupation . He linked together inseparably worshi p and l abour . He provided for ideal communities, 1 organised under the severest discipline , in which men Should divide their time between work in the ﬁelds and quiet contempla tion of A God . S the movement developed and made its appeal to men some of the ﬁnest Spirits EuTO e in p turned to this method of life .

These early monks , in the days when high faith and sincerity characterised the fellow ships , cleared forests , drained marshes, con quered stubborn mountain Sides and turned waste stretches of country into beautiful

ﬁelds and arable soil . They also learned to u c ltivate other kinds of soil . They created THE R E LIGIOUS 6 1

schools , preserved ancient literature , kept ni r Greek lear ng alive , nourished a love of poet y o f and song , and were the purveyors what u was ever cult re there in the Dark Ages . The Western monastery almost from the ﬁrst became the nursery of the greatest of leaders the Church . It was never a thing of E apart , after the manner the astern w lesi ola n cc si . as ecc i e le a hermits It an , a n little Church within the Church , feedi g its intensiﬁed life into the larger body . Many of the greatest Popes formed their religious o f ideals in the monastery . Many the most powerful administrators in the Church gained their Skill and insight and con structive power in these quiet communities i l i . of worsh p , labour and discip ne Unfortunately this close and intimate " a li a i on - , t with the world church tended to secularise the monastery itself . Ambition invaded its sacred enclosure . The traits of life that marked the great community gradually crept in and revealed themselves not s in the little community . It was po sible to make monastery walls irnperv i ous . Furth ermbre i s , human nature a very i s i ul l vi rile thing . It c tindeed to kil it out ll without actually ki ing the body . It kept asserting itself in these little remnant groups . Appetites that were supposed to be obli ter ar ated reasserted themselves . It was h d to keep keyed up continually to the height of the p ure ideal . 6 2 THE R EMNANT

sa was so The g of nature an ominous fact , real that sometimes it seemed as though di abolical forces were added to the native downward pull . There were periods when a universal degeneracy seemed to affect u the world , leaving no centres q ite free and threatening the complete fai lure of the an d Christian experiment . But again again reforms were inaugurated in the monastic groups . Devoted leaders appeared in hours of of crisis, called for new ventures renun ci ati on of , led their little bands selected volunteers farther into the wilderness f or severer discipline and for more heroic efforts Go d of dedication to . It was the true remnant method which they tried . They aimed to cultivate a little band of purer quality , that would build a Specimen Zion in the fastnesses of their to retreat , and then endeavour carry their stricter life and purer ideals back into the looser monasteries and into the secularised of Church . The long story is full light and o of as Shade . We are apt t think monks fat , lazy , useless beings . We turn from the whole experiment and suppose it to have been a vast moral failure . No doubt it was an was attempt to do the impossible . It always hampered by ignorance of psychological and sociological laws of life and it pursued a mistaken conception of holiness , but it is of o f one the bravest ventures the race , and wa it s never wholly failure . More than once “ ” THE R ELIGIOUS 63 the monastery proved to be the garrison and sanctuary of the most precious ideals of the n o t nl it faith . It gave the Church o y s purest its saints , but also wisest leaders, and it did in some fashion at least what Should be ri expected of a remnant . It raised the Spi tual level of the wider community for which it r lived and p ayed . THE SPI R ITUAL FR ANCISCANS

THE genius and inspiration of Francis of Assisi created a marvellous new type of of remnant , both like and unlike that the

monastery . No other attempt to reproduce

primitive apostolic Christianity , with its its grace , its charm , radiance , its j oy , its

abandon , its dedication , its unlimited sacri ﬁce c onﬁ , its sense of God and its absolute h as dence in the conquering power of love , come quite so close to the original model as did this Franciscan experiment of the

thirteenth century . It is true , of course , was hi s that Francis , like everybody else in of un century , devoid historical sense and able to reconstruct the actual scenery and

circumstance of the primitive group . He carried in hi s mind the picture of the Galilean circle which tradition and mediaeval ideals was of had fashi oned . There in it a tinge of asceticism and a gloriﬁcation poverty , which did not essentially belong to the n of Christia ity of the Gospels , but the heart the Franciscan venture is always to be felt of o in its restoration love , sacriﬁce and j y to

the ﬁrst place in religion . O Lord , my ask two Saviour , Francis prayed , I favours u before I die . Let me feel in my so l , in my

64 T HE SPI R ITUAL F RANCISCANS 6 5

ai body even , all the bitter p ns which thou hast felt . And in my heart let me feel that m hi im easurable love w ch made Thee , Son of Go d endure such sufferings for us poor

Si nners . so n Like many other thi gs in the world , the Franciscan movement was, or at least soon became , a mixture , a compromise , a fusion . One of the great struggles in the life of John Wyclif was his unendi ng ﬁght against the Friars , and every student of history and literature knows that something marred and Spoiled the beautiful creation which Francis made . It is a long and com plicated tragedy . We can deal here only with the Franciscan ideal found in its purity in the Spirit of Francis himself and carried on with mingled success and failure by Spiritual successors who tried to preserve of the precious creation the founder .

What Francis tried to do was to restore , to reproduce , original Christianity , to make it live again in the actual world Of thirteenth saw as all century Italy . He , the prophets throughout the Christian era have seen , that the existing Church was an inadequate to system . It failed minister vitally and o f in refreshing , recreative ways to the life oo the vast masses of humanity . It t Often

gave a stone for bread . It substituted fear r t fo j oy . It had los its sense of mission as the builder of a kingdom of God in this world

of men , here , and it was occupied instead 6 6 THE R E MNANT

with its mission as the bearer of the keys to all the world beyond . With its grandeur and imperial authority the Church was not carrying on nor fulﬁlling the work of love and redemption which Christ had ’ inaugurated , and Francis sensitive soul

discovered that inner fact , and he ﬂung himself unreservedly into the task of ﬁlling up what was behind of the sufferings of Christ for men and Of rediscovering and recharting

the trail of life which led back home to Go d . His story is an indivisible blend of fact an d of of legend, biography and poetry ,

history and imagination . Nobody can ever completely disentangle the threads which

have been woven together, and decide with certainty between the warp of historical

fact and the woof of poetic fancy . The

Francis whom we know and love , the real for St . Francis us, is the charming person

ality which poetry and art , legend and was literature have passed on to us . He 1 1 8 2 son o f born in , the a rich merchant o f as Assisi . He lived a gay , j oyous life

boy and youth . He loved and fought lik e

the other rich young men of his time . He had a round of triumphs and successes and he hi s t also had aste Of adversity , having endured a year of captivity as a prisoner of war in

Perugia . Then came a great Upheaval in his as inner life , strange and mysterious , such of l am religious Shifts level a ways are . I of thinking taking a bride , richer and nobler

6 8 THE R E MNANT

his call own , wearing a rough coarse garment tied with a rope girdle and going forth like the apostles to preach the good news of

salvation . The multitudes ﬂocked to hear

this new and wonderful preacher, who Spoke to their hearts and wh o made the love of o n n God absolutely real . His wn co vi cti o awakened conviction in others and men from the city and country began to j oin him in the

practice o f poverty . About the year 1 2 1 0 the Pope granted permission for him to form an Order of Poor on e Brothers , with Simple rule , namely , i ” that they Should lead the apostolic l fe . They were to form a remnant within the wh o Church , consisting of those were ready to live like the ﬁrst apostles and be done for al the ever w-ith ambition , riv ry and pursuit of self interests . l r A second Order fo lowed , a ve y few years of later , composed women , who chose a

‘ ” Similar life to that of the brothers . They ” of were called Clarisses , after the name

Clara , the noble woman whose life had been wh o reached by Francis, and had dedicated herself to the same kind of life as that upon ll which he had entered . Sti later a third Franciscan Order was formed unlike the two other in this, that the members of it al might live at home , pursue the norm course Of daily Occupati ons and “ follow Christ without tearing up the roots of their life from

the Soil In which they were growing . It was THE SPI R ITUAL FR ANCISCANS 6 9 a serious attempt to carry religion literally “ ” as into everyday life . These Tertiaries , l a of . they were c led , were both sexes They n ot were asked to give up houses and lands , home and family . They were asked rather to penetrate all life with the fragrant Spiri t of love a n d to practise renunciation and self Its sacriﬁce in the midst of occupations . members were forbidden to bear arms in f a ul was o fensive w rfare , and until the r e altered by a later Pope they might not a an ki nd E eng ge in y of war . ven after the alteration was made in the rules a vassal Tertiary could still always refuse to render military service to his suzerain . The move t iri ment cultivated a beau iful group Sp t , bound the artisans and working men together into brotherhood guilds and tended to di s integrate the feudal system .

The Spirit of St . Francis was utterly ri Opposed to enmity and hate . It was a Spi t which removed the seeds of war and di d away with the occasion for it . Instead Of leading a crusade agai nst the Mohammedans and killing multitudes of them in order to recover r of inﬁdels the sepulch e Christ from the , he went unarmed among them as a Christian missionary and absolutely trusted to the w n protecting power of love . It as o e of the ’ greatest miracles of the sai nt s life that o i E he c uld reverse the entire pract ce of urope , and the whole conception of the Church w out to ard these pagan peoples and could go , 7 0 THE R EMNANT

out and did go , in the immense faith that love would work among them as well as he had di scovered that it di d work in his own Italy . What he thought of love as a method of life is beautifully told i n on e of the stories — of The Li ttle Flowers the one o n perfect

j oy . It tells how he and Brother Leo were travelling on a bitterly cold day in early Sprin g

to the little church Of St . Mary of the Angels , and as they walked Francis was telling his friend that they could n ot expect to ﬁnd

perfect j oy where most people tried to ﬁnd it .

Finally , in answer to his insistent question , Wherein then does perfect j oy consist Francis said

When we come to St . Mary of the Angels , all soaked as we are with rain and numbed with cold and besmeared with mud and

tormented with hunger , and the porter comes Wh o P in anger and says , are Ye and we say , ’ We are two of your brethren , and he says ,

Ye be no true men nay , ye be two rogues that gad about deceiving the world and ’ r robbing the alms of the poo get ye gone , us and thereat he Shuts the door , and makes th e stand without in snow and the rain , cold l - and hungered , ti l night fall if there withal we patiently endure such wrong and such i and cruelty , without being d squieted , with — patience and charity Oh , Brother Leo , write

i s . that herein perfect j oy And if we , still i constrained by hunger , cold, and n ght , knock — yet again and pray hi m with much weeping THE SPI R ITUAL FRANCISCANS 7 1 for the love of God that he will Open and let us s a in , and he yet more enraged should y

These be importunate knaves , I will pay ’ them well as they deserve , and should rush out with a knotty stick and throw us upon the t ground, and beat us with all the kno s of that f stick . if with patience and gladness we su fer t i o n of all these hings , th nking the pains the i — blessed Chr st Oh , Brother Leo , write that — herein is perfect joy l Above all graces and t Hi s gif s that Christ giveth to beloved , is the grace and gift willingly for His love to endure

pains and insults and shame and want . In the cross of tribulation and aﬁlicti on we

may boast Since this is ours and, therefore

saith the apostle , I would not that I Should glory in the cross of our Lord J esus save

’ The great tragedy of Francis life was th e gradual transformation of his Order to make

it ﬁt the schemes and policies of the Church . He had agreed when the Order was ﬁrst founded that it Should always submit to the

Church as its supreme authority . But the poor little man had never suspected what lay involved in that seemingly harmless

promise . With a sudden start he awoke to discover that his beloved Order was no l ” l longer free . It could be aposto ic on y accordi ng to the papal interpretation of

apostolic , and this interpretation was quite different from his inspired vision of apostolic i Hi s l fe . own little band became divided , 72 THE R EMNANT some of them eager to follow their leader even to death for the pure way of love and poverty and some determined to adj ust to the demands of the secularised Church . The last part of ’ Francis life with its pains and illnesses, its f passion and su fering , its inward cruciﬁxion , and outward stigmata , can be understood only in the light of his bitter experiences of stress and strain . He held the order together during his life and avoided a break but even before his death in 1 2 2 6 the Order was ’ seriously altered from the ideal of Francis for youthful dream , and the conquest of it worldly ends and fo r ecclesiastical aims and purposes went steadily on .

There existed , however, a staunch and determined party within the Order which was resolved at all costs to preserve the apostolic f o . purity the movement Brother Leo, a i beautiful character like Francis h mself , was the leading ﬁgure in this party of the ” or i Spirituals , the Sp ritual Franciscans . This devoted band stood for strict observance of the original rule of poverty an d and Simplicity apostolic life , while on the other hand the larger body was ‘ ‘ ” for accepting the Softer way , the easier course , proposed by papal dispensations . It su remac a was an intense struggle for p y , ri v alr of i s y ideals , a struggle which always implicitly in evidence in the early Franciscan literature . The forces of the Church were on the Side of the party of adj ustment and the THE S PI RITUAL FRANCISCANS 7 3

ri al of Spi tu s were , course , doomed to a f life of su fering and outward defeat , but there can be little doubt that Francis himself would have taken his place with those who were o * the champions f the ideal of poverty . There were many branches and types of ” i al f the Sp ritu s , di ferentiated by the leaders or by the conditions of the country ” where they ﬂourished . The most famous branch o f them in the history Of heresy was ” rati c elli perhaps the group known as the F , ” or wh o Little Brothers , were originally Tuscan Spirituals and who were treated by the church as recalcitrant heretics . Another famous group revived the hopes of Joachim of Flora and proclaimed an Eternal ” r . one o Gospel In form another, sometimes in isolation and so metimes merged with other rebel movements, they persisted down into R eformation times . Their position varied with the varying attitudes of the successive of Popes , and with the changing ideals the For generalates within the Order . a brief season the Spirituals enj oyed a triumph under Pope Celestin V . a pious monk who was unﬁtted for the storms of the world and who quickly abdi cated the papacy and returned to the quiet of his cell and they had an earlier period of outward success o f — a l o f while John Palma man ful power, ’ — wisdom and God s grace was master

The Mi rror of Perfecti on was wri tten to expound th e i d eals th e i i t al of Sp r u s . 74 THE REMNANT

o f 1 2 general the Franciscan Order, from 47 to 1 2 wh o to 57 , and endeavoured bring the rder back to the Spiri tual glory of its ﬁrst

Cov e . With the exception of these two brief ri periods , the Spi tuals were hunted as though they had been venemous beasts , and subj ected to a persecution amounting to a reign of terror . I had rather receive and of Shelter a band fornicators than these men , is the comment of o n e ecclesiastic in reference to two of these devoted followers of the To Franciscan ideal . refuse to drift with the tide and to decline to accept the softer standards of life proposed by the papal out fo r th e authority , and to stand apostolic F way adopted by rancis , ensured everywhere

f . hate , persecution , su fering and death This hard course the little remnant of Spiritual o Franciscans to k with conscientious bravery , and in doing SO th ey endeavoured to keep ’ alive the Spirit and the ideals o f God s poor ll little man of Assisi , whose ca and mission had been to restore Christian ity and to exhi bit the apostolic life .

76 THE R EMNANT w variety as life every here always is, we become unconcerned about uniﬁcation , or at least we bec ome much more concerned about something else . Uniformity would under cimumstances al all be a c amity , while unity i s seen to be an inherent feature of genuine normal Spiritual life under the inspi ration

Of Christ and the guidance of the Spirit . The Church seemed at the Opening of the twelfth century to hold the future in its hand .

Its authority was unchallenged . Its grandeur and Splendour impressed every beholder . Its centralised power surpassed that of any other i imperial organ sati on the world has ever seen . It controlled the destiny of every man and woman . It held the keys to the world beyond . It assumed that it could Open or Shut the gates to heaven or hell . It claimed to be the sole of mediator celestial grace . But its structure was al n ot not ethic ly based . Its power was ri a moral and Spi tual power . It was not grounded in the eternal nature of things . Its promises were not backed and guaranteed by the unalterable laws of the moral universe .

Its ecclesiastical hierarchy , which claimed ossess ed was and unparalleled authority , mor y weak and decrepit . Immorality , al either ﬂagrant or subtly conce ed , was honey-combing the celibate priesthood The

Sin of Simony was eating outits heart and life . The unethical use of indulgences as a source of wealth was working and was bound to o r work moral havoc . Sooner later the THE 1 2 mAND 1sm CE NTUR I ES 77 Church would be forced to reckon with the native hunger Of the human soul and would have to square up its accounts with the al of unescapable mor forces the world . These deeper issues began to Show them selves at the very moment when the outward authority of the Church seemed supreme and forever safe . Men began to ask whether this imperial organisation was really ministering in a genui ne way to the inmost needs of the of soul . They were conscious something stirring within themselves of which the Church took little account and they were aware o f strivings of heart to which the ordained priest could not adequately speak . Gradually these serious honest people began to seek their o salvation in their wn way . They ventured on forth lonely quests for truth , risking not l ’ on y their soul s welfare , but taking their n the life in their ha ds as well . They were of heretics these two wonderful centuries .

They appeared under many names , they took of many forms revolt , they exhibited a great o f - variety solutions to the world old problem , but in o n e way or another they were all trying to revive and restore apostolic religion . There has ever since been an unending battle with ” heresy , and there never can be again an undisturbed Church until there is a genuinely Spiritual one . I have already Spoken of the Franciscan to al attempt restore the Christian ide . I dealt with it somewhat out of the order of 78 THE R EMNANT

al historic sequence , ﬁrst because it ﬁtted so closely in with the monastic movement

treated in the chapter before , and secondly because it did not rise to the degree of a revolt until it reached its later stage when the Fracti celli and other rebel branches

of the Spiritual Franciscans emerged . Our present chapter wi ll consider a move ment which was essentially anti-sacerdotal and fundamentally rebel in its attitude toward al — the ecclesiastic Church the Vaudois , or ” ! Waldensian remnant . The ancient tra dition that the people grouped under the name Vaudois or Waldenses had had an

unbroken history back to apostolic days, and that in the retreats of the Alpine valleys they had preserved the original gospel un con tami n ated and uncorrupted has little support except in the Sphere of creative imagination . It was in fact only at a later time that the members of this remnant found their homes in the Alpine valleys of the Vaudois . It does , ri however, seem probable that the Spi t and attitude which found expression in th e — Donatist movement a Spirit of strong protest against a secularised Church more or less — fused with th e State never actually di ed

. out. Itwas constantly recurring and making itself felt n o w in o ne form of protest and n o w in another . The Paulicians , the Cathari , the

Albigenses , with their numerous variants , connected with the far past and were all movements whic h rallied their adherents to THE 12TH AND 13TH CE NTUR IES 79 stricter ways of life and to determined of Opposition to the immorality the clergy , and to the sacerdotalism and secularity Of the t d o Church . And while hey not explain the origin of the Waldenses they nevertheless exerted a positive influence upon their development and upon their aims and ideals . The movement as a definite and unique religious venture owed its origin to a rich of R merchant Lyons on the hone, named al 1 1 al Peter W do . About the year 73 , W do passed through a great religious crisis whi ch altered the whole outlook of his life . The Spiritual advisers with whom he took counsel turned his thoughts to poverty as the divine way to bring the Church outof the evils of the world into purity and perfection . It al was the Spiritual panacea Of the age . W do accepted the advice , took literally the words of Jesus If thou wilt be perfect , sell all thou hast and give to the poor , and come and ” follow me , and made forthwith the great n ot renunciation . He was , however , as gentle and obedient as was hi s successor in the way of poverty , Francis of Assisi . He was deeply i mpressed with the failure of the Church and he possessed in high degree the reforming m attitude and temper . He saturated his ind with the teachings of the Gospels and with the of words Jesus . He caught the primitive attitude toward the poor , the common people , and he became filled with pity and com passion for the great neglected masses . A 8 0 THE R EMNANT genuine social Spirit was born in him and he to resolved carry the message of life , the good o f di news vine love , to the people who laboured and were heavy laden . Convinced as he was that ordination worked no moral or Spiritual ’ to miracle in any priest s life , he decided go out as n an u ordained layman , and to make the experiment o f telling what he knew out of the own Gospels and out of his experiences . He used some of his consecrated wealth to pay for having parts of the Bible translated into the of vernacular Speech , and instead giving only bread to the poor he gave them copies of the Gospels where they could find the Bread of Life , and-he went about himself interpreting the gospel message in its native simplicity . of He gathered a little band helpers , composed of those who Shared his point of view and who lot were ready to throw in their with him , and these poor men of Lyons undertook to inaugurate a new era of apostolic life and of lay preaching to men and women who toiled with their hands . They came almost at once into collision f with the O ficials of the Church . They were informed that they were usurping functions to which did not belong them . They were told that they mus t confine their labours to secular tasks and not cast pearls before swine , as they were doing . Waldo appealed to his

Copy of the precious Gospels for his authority , but all in vain . He was forbidden to preach , and his poor men were warn ed to desist . THE 12TH AND 13TH CE NTU R IE S 8 1 With great boldness Waldo quoted the apostolic words We must obey Go d rather ” l to than men , and app ied them their own

. of case This , course , meant a break with the existing order and from this time onward the poor men of Lyons were outcasts of h a to in the eyes the Church , and d take the ” hazards and penalties of being heretics . The Opposition and persecution which attached to their position steadily forced them into a more critical attitude toward the hi erarchy , carried them farther in their hostility to the entire system and even tually differentiated them into a separate ” Of remnant Church , consisting those who made the Gospels the basis of their way of

They perfected a very Simple organisation o wn ahn ost i of their , with no d stinction between clergy and laity . A certain number of them devoted all their time to the pro a ati on o f p g the gospel , and these more perfect members naturally had greater authority and inﬂuence . They received no human ordination and they supported them S irn le n selves by p occupations , such as cobbli g , dl tinkering , ped ing and the Simple doctoring which prevailed in this century . Thes e Oc cupations enabled them to obtain an en an tr ce into homes without exciting suspicion , and after they had secured the en tree they used the Opportunity to propagate their religion . By such means and methods they 8 2 THE R EMNANT

dl u Spread rapi y , especially In the r ral districts, and soon became a real menace to the unity and authority of the Church . They levelled their main attacks ag ainst the e of unethical asp cts the Church . They challenged especially the theory that the ordained priest could work the miracle of - trans substantiation by the gift of a magical power conferred upon him by his ordination . on They insisted , the contrary , that all Spiritual gifts and all power of mini stry attach to moral and Spiri tual qualities in the life of the i s f hi s person himself . A priest e fective in ministrations In exact proportion to the purity i i n and moral power of his life . If he s living Sin no ordination can enable him to medi ate i s divine grace . In Short the Church the Church of the living Go d only in so far as its members , both clergy and laity , live the life that ﬁts the teaching of its Founder . They also stoutly attacked indulgences as a wicked invention for securing money from the poor u for no ret rn . They further declared that purgatory and prayers and offerings to saints s i on s are vain and ex pen si ve super tti . They would have none of them and they aroused the common people to an attitude of revolt agai nst these invented schemes for exploiting the

Simple . But the most characteristic feature of this intense remn ant was its emphasis upon a life in conformity with the Gospels . They were Tolstoyan i n their interpretations of the

A REMNANT IN THE RHINE VALLEY

THI S chapter will be devoted to the groups or societies of mystics which were formed in the R hine Valley in the fourteenth century , and ” were known as Friends of God . Mysticism as such is not a remnant r movement . It is a more o less universal

aspect of religion . It is religion in its intensiﬁed and dynamic state as an immedi ate experience of the Divine Presence revealing

itself to the individual soul . Sometimes the mystical experience seems like a sudden

invasion of consciousness . Energies and forces o f life not usually felt come ﬂoodin g In as do tides of the s ea into the inlets of the i coast . The whole personal ty seems to be fused, charged and vitalised through imme diate contact with the central Life of the l universe . These experiences are frequent y attended with striking psychological effects . The person may feel hi mself enveloped in or u light , he may hear a voice comm nicating with him or he may reveal remarkable automatic activities of a variety of types . on l Or, the other hand , there may be no unusua s phenomena , only a sen e of calm , of forti

ﬁcati on and of complete certainty of God .

84 A R E MNANT I N THE R HINE VALLE Y 8 5 Sometimes the mystical experience is not sudden ! it is rather the normal effect of faith of and trust and conﬁdence , rising to a stage

fellowship , intercourse and correspondence

with Go d . One may hardly know when the i on e nl personal relationsh p began , may o y

know that it i s really Operating now . In fact many times the coming of God into the life i s discovered in retrospect rather than as a as present reality , God said to Moses Thou

shalt s ee me after I have passed by . The heart burns with an unwonted glow while the person himself hardly knows why he is so moved until the secret declares itself in some later experience .

Hearts that are fai nti ng ’ G row full to o erﬂo wi n g And the y that be hold i t Marv el and know not That God h as been rai ni ng Far o ﬁ s at thei r fountai n .

In all ages and among almost all peoples al o f this vit , acute and intense type religious experience h as appeared in higher or lower degrees . It is religion in its first intention , and the continual recurrence of it has kept religion alive and progressive through all the fluctuations and the disasters o f human O history . S important and so wonderful has — this mystic al experience this first hand — consciousness of God seemed in di fferen t periods of history that religious experts have sometimes endeavoured to indicate definite 86 THE R E MNANT

methods of attaining it . They have given directions by which faithful and obedient souls might pass from the lower levels of religious i o r life and power to the h gher levels , even to the highest level of union and absorption in e n Go-d . Thes expert directions co stitute the so called mystic way with its upward steps h f or rounds, by w ich the soul may mount rom knowledge about God to knowledge of intimate of acquaintance with Him . From the period

St . Augustine in the fourth century an immense amount of attention was gi ven to thi s phase of religion by th e great spiritual leaders of Christian life and thought. There was an almost unbroken line of mystical prophets in real apostolic succession . ” E R Dionysius, John Scotus rigena , ichard f . of . o of St Victor, Hugh St Victor, Bernard

i . Cla rvaux, Amaury of Bene, St Thomas E Aquinas , Meister ckhart and many others contributed out of the mighty stream of their personal experience to the clearer knowledge of God an d of the mystic way . In the fourteenth century mysticism had come to be recogni sed as an indispensable feature of mi living Christianity . Do nicans and Fran cisc an s agreed upon this . The followers of St .

Thomas and the followers of Duns Scotus , of who were Opposed upon a multitude points, were united in the view that the soul of man could and should come into a personal eXp er f i ence . s o of God , The real essential the faith u were felt to be not the concl sions of Councils , ‘ A R EMNANT I N THE R HINE VALLE Y 8 7

nor the decisions of the Pope , nor the secular i policy of the Vatican , but the immed ate experiences of God which came to the indi vidual souls who constituted the true , invisible Church of the living God . Out of the vague longings and strivings o f the people who heard the great mystic teachers and read their books and sermons there gradually emerged a somewhat concrete an d -deﬁnite mystical movement with a well d eﬁn ed ai m and purpose to reform the

Church . All through the latter part of the thirteenth century there had been forming small groups of mystically-minded men and of women . They bore a variety names , for example Beghards, Beguines, Brothers of ri the Free Spi t, and Flagellants, and they exhibited varying degrees of sanity and ri spi tual service . But they in any case f suggested to the-lay people o the period the value of group life and the possibility of propagating mystical religion through c oncen r h e t ated effort in intensiﬁed societies . T powerful popular preaching of Eckhart (1 2 6 0 1 32 7) one of the greatest interpreters of in ﬂu mysticism that ever lived, was another

ence in the same direction . The grave of catastrophes and disasters the period, the Black Death the civil war over the imperial

succession , the Babylonish Captivity of

the Church , tended to put sensitively organ ised persons into unstable equilibrium and to make them ready to respond in an unusual 8 8 THE R E MNA NT

of way to the suggestions forceful leaders . The rapid Spread o f ﬂag ellati on through the E e cities and towns of urop , caught up like a contagion , reveals the psycholog-ical condition which prevailed in the middle period of the

century . In this atmosphere the societies of the Friends of God were born along the R hine Valley from the Swiss overland to the

sea . They were loosely organised groups of persons gathered about some strong leader who directed the Spiritual culture and develop

ment of the little band . The leaders were of

both sexes , and there were Sisterhood w ” groups as ell as brotherhood groups . M E of argaret and Christina bner, Bavaria , were two o f the most remarkable leaders of

this intense Spiritual revival , and it would seem that prophetesses were fully as inﬂuential ” as prophets . The ideals of the scattered groups can be discovered n owonly through the fragmentary corr espondence which has sur v i v ed of , and through a peculiar form liter ature which the leaders of the little societies miﬁ titi ous . se c created The books are , the Situations being partly real and partly l imagined and being always freely hand ed, S O as often with considerable genius , to set forth and illustrate the ideals and aspirations “ ” o f the Friends o f God . It is plainly a ’ o f layman s movement . These Friends ” God had not broken with the Church , but they had lost hope and expectation that any great Spiritual results were likely to come A R EMNANT I N THE R HINE VALLE Y 8 9 to the world through the hierarchy or through its consecrated channels of grace . They di d not give up using the existing channels but they constantly Speak of them as less important than the direct way to Go d which d s own ul they have i covered in their so s, and occasionally they approach the Protestant an attitude d temper of mind . The recurrent note in their letters and writings is the testi mony whi ch they bear to the Spiri tual service that can be rendered by lay persons when once they have found God , and have become organs of His Spirit . Without intending to al dispense with the historic system, t-hey practically treated it as a kind of Ioop line which could be left on on e Side since the desired goal could be attained by a shorter cut across . The widely known , but much The Book o misunderstood, treatise , entitled f the M a ster , one of the most successful of their writings , was written to expound the potential Spiri tual service which can be rendered to the Church by the enlightened layman . The Master was long supposed to be J ohn was as Tauler, and this document used a basis for the biography of this great Strasbourg al e of preacher . It is most certainly a pi ce imaginative literature and gives nobody’ s al actu biography , but it does tell in powerful fashion what might be done by an uh ordained Christian man who brings his soul into parallelism with divine currents , and lets im the life of God go out through h . The 90 THE R E MNANT H oly Spirit , this layman declares to the “ o f h as Master Scripture , the same power — ” to day as ever . Men can still hear in their ” own souls what they are to Speak . There “ n is a lower school of exter al , or letter ” knowledge, and a higher school , or

upper School , in which men are directly taught by the Holy Spirit . A good illustration of the di fference between the two methods is given in The Book of the Two M en ten den c , another example of y wri ti ng from some Friend of God If two men gave thee a description of the R on e City of ome , by mere hearsay , and the other by experience after he had been there , thou wouldst give thy at tention mainly to the o u . S second also , if a man ho has been touched inwardly by divine grace hears the ll preaching of a doctor who sti loves himself , he feels that the preaching of such a doctor does not come from pure and unadulterated love of God . The soul that i s ﬁlled with di vine is love not touched by such a sermon . Such a preacher is Speaking only by hearsay of the R of heavenly ome , and the roads which lead nl to it . He knows o y what he has learned from Scripture . But if the same man hears the preaching of a master who knows both from Scripture and through his o wn Spiritual all experience , a master who has renounced l - - se f love and self advantage , who knows the R heavenly ome , not only by hearsay , but because he has travelled the road to it , and

92 THE R E MNANT

’ How direct the city into God s way . near this four teenth century layman came to a religion of the Spirit can perhaps be seen in a striking passage which insists that Go d can save men i n many ways besides the way i h trad tion as sanctioned as unique . He says ! If a Jew o r Mohammedan fears God from ar the depth Of his he t , and leads a good and simple life if he does n ot know any better religion than the one in which he was born if he is ready to obey God in case He reveals to o wn him a better faith than his , why Should not such a man be dearer to God than wicked and impious Christians who though having i received baptism , w lfully disobey the com mands of God When God ﬁnds a good Jew or Mohammedan o f pure life He feels a t of i t hrill love and inﬁnite p y for him , no

matter In what part of the earth he lives , and God wi ll ﬁn d s ome way of s avi ng hi mun known to us ! If baptism cannot be conferred God upon him , though he has a desire for it , can ba ti ze hi m i n the hol desi re o hi s wi ll p y f , and there are in the eternal world many good

agans who have been received In this way . u R John Ta ler , Jan uysbroeck , and the unknown author Of a little book , called Theolo i a German i ca g , are the profoundest interpreters of the Spiritual religion which the’ Friends of God endeavoured to express and practise . These three writers lay excessive emphasis on the way o f abstracti on i and negat on . They had inherited from their A R E MNANT IN THE R HINE VALLE Y 93 literary progenitors a form of thought which

conceived of Go d as the Hidden Dark i . c .

as an indeterminate Absolute , devoid of all ni concrete attributes , an Infi te withdrawn fin i tes R l from all , a ea ity apart from and ar ul above all particul s . No revelation co d ul reveal Him , no description co d express His being, no word about Him could be a true u i account of His nat re . This strain , wh ch holds an immense place in most mystical our literature , does not fit present way of Go d conceiving , and it makes the books and sermons of these earlier prophets of the ri spi tual life, with their insistent stress upon asceticism and withdrawal , somewhat of a burden to the modern reader .

There is , however , another strain in these great books which Speaks straight , to the sincere modern heart . These men are done with the hollow performan ces of religion and have found a direct way to the living

God and to life itself . They were trying , as a as vali ntly they could , to inaugurate a new of epoch , to build a new kind Church , resting or or for its power not on Dogma , orders , sacraments , or authority of ordination , but on the Life and Love of God revealed in and i through the r human lives . They formed a true remnant in the di fficult world of their on e age , and they exerted Of the supreme inﬂuences upon the inner life of the R eforma tion two centuries later , for which they had done much to prepare the way . THE COMMON MAN ’ S ATTE MPT AT R EFOR MATION

PAR ALLEL with the main current of the Protestant R eformation there ran from the very beginning another powerful current which has always received far less consider ation from historians than it deserves . Some have supposed it to be an abortive , if not monstrous , undertaking . Others have con sid ered it on e more among the many lost f r causes o which history is more o less silent . on e of Neither these positions is, however , ” quite tenable . It was , like Bunker Hill R “ in the American evolution , a battle lost , ” but a cause won , since nearly everything which these minor reformers aimed at has Since been achieved or is on the way to achievement . The leaders of this parallel movement were ruthlessly martyred , their followers were exterminated , their books and tracts were suppressed , their aims were slanderously f misinterpreted , their brave e forts were as l rapid y as possible overwhelmed with oblivion , but , strangely enough , their ideas have — e triumphed . Their truths though th y them ’ MAN S ATTE MPT AT R EFO R MATION 95

— are ik selves are dead marching on , l e J ohn ’ i of i Brown s sp rit . Their vision what Chr st i anity Should be is much closer to the heart of our own religion to-day in England and i s of America , than either the theology Luther r o the dogmatic system of Calvin . There is no occasion to belittle the service of the great of reformers, the reformers folio Size , like al Luther , C vin and Zwingli . They did a monumental piece of work ! they changed of d the course history decide y for the better , s o and they have been given , and rightly , their place with the immortals . There is , lumb er ~sh eer nevertheless , much , dead wood , - in their semi mediaeval systems . They carried - on many aspects of pre reformation Christ i ani ty whi ch might profitably have been off sloughed , and they loaded human minds and hearts with some tragic burdens which they might well have been spared and they failed to feel or to sympathise with the liberating social aspirations whi ch the minor s ee reformers felt . It is no doubt easier to - ‘ these facts to day than it was to s ee th emfour hundred years ago , and we ought not to expect at the beginning of a period the critical insight that comes through the cumu lative experience of the years . — These neglected reformers Of the quarto or —di d s ee octavo Size , perhaps on the Spot then , that much of the wood in the new systems was of th i already dead , that many e trag c burdens whi ch the reformers were loading on human 96 THE R E MNANT shoulders were too heavy to be borne and were , in any case , unnecessary . They wanted a root and branch reformation , a thorough going reformation , a radical purification and re- organisation . Though they belonged to the ar schol ly class and came , almost without exception, from the universities , they were in deep sympathy with the people . They thought and Spoke for toilers and peasants . They had entered into the meaning of the social struggle , and had come under the burden o f human suffering ! they intensely felt th e of social wrongs the world , and they came forth as the champions of the reformation which the common man needed and demanded . They failed in their day to carry through their was programme, but it in the main a noble o f was aspiration , much it wisely conceived , historical experience h as confirmed many of i the aims embod ed in it , and it deserves n ot t patient and impartial , if sympathe ic , study . One of the most interesting historical ' questions is that c on cern ed with the Spiri tual of pedigree the movement, or more properly of the movements , for it was not ever as we

see . Shall , well uniﬁed into any single system There must Obviously have been s ome pre ar for reformation prep ation it , since it burst forth almost simultaneously at many widely sundered places, in many lands , and It accumulated at once an immense popular volume and momentum . Wherever, it on its appeared it took , with all particular ’ MAN S ATTE MPT AT R E FOR MATION 97

variations , striking Similarities at least in its central purpose and in its fundamental princi ai nl ples . The leaders pl y had a large stock

of ideas and ideals in common . There must - have been some back ground explanation . Unfortunately it is not possible yet to pro duce definite documentary evidence to prove beyond question that these new groups which formed at the beginning Of the R eformation were the di rect product of earlier groups of al W clifites mystics , W denses, y , Hussites , ” of or ri al Brothers the Common Life , Spi tu And yet it is an un mi stak able fact that there did exist in unbroken l R succession , especia ly through the hine val n of ley and in Switzerla d , hidden groups - heretics and mystics . The puritan minded Waldenses were never suppressed on the continent , as the Lollards never were in o f England . The writings the mystics of the a l fourteenth , and especi l y the writings of ” the great Brother of the Common Life , a Thomas Kempis of the fifteenth century , were widely circulated and devotedly read . b ro These ooks , as we know exercised a p o n found influence Luther , and there is much to indicate that they exerted a still more profound influence upon the popular leaders with whom we are now concerned . The essential reason for thinking so is that the Lud wi g Keller was c onvi n ced tha thi s res earches esta blished t i i n t b ut t er c lar i clud i n Tro elts ch d o n o t h s po , o h s ho s , n g , ’ en d r e hi s cl i m S ee e eci all Keller E i n A stel d cr o s a . sp y s po Wi e aii er rt f . 98 THE R EMNANT body of ideas in the new movement are uni formly so harmoni ous and consonant with the teaching and aspirations of these mystics and with the heretical groups which had already suggested the lines of reformation that were

needed to restore real Christianity . - f Two events woke the quiet , long Su fering successors of the mystics and heretical groups ex ec from mere dumb hope to eager, vivid p — tati on the powerful teaching of the human i s a of ts and the dynamic mess ge Luther . It is impossible to mi ss or ignore the di rect inﬂuence of the humanists upon the leaders of - ’ this common man s reformation . It is most apparent in the new social and ethical on e emphasis . They and all Show a revolt . l h as i from the o d theology . It lost both ts for interest and its reality them . Something else more real and more appealin g has come of into the foreground their consciousness . They have drawn much closer to the J esus of the Gospels than had anybody else since

St . Francis . They are more attracted to Him and to Hi s wonderful words than to the elaborate metaphysical accounts of His being n and ature . They turn eagerly to the ositiv e teachings of this great Master of ' fe as they ﬁnd them revealed in the New

Testament, which the humanists had helped too them discover . They learned, , from these same humani sts how vastly different the Church of their time was from the Church its in pristine apostolic purity and power .

1 00 THE R E MNANT though in historical inﬂuence the former are * n ot more important than the latter . The ﬁrst group o f Anabaptists to differ enti ate its , and to formulate and express principles was the Swiss group , in and about

al . Zurich and St . G l The leaders were young scholars and priests whose hearts , under the ” o n e cross , had been made with the common people . They were genuine shepherds of the

ﬂock . The most important men who led this movement were Conrad Grebel , Felix l R oublin Manz , Wi liam , Simon Stumpff, and

Ludwig Hetzer . They had all been power fully affected by their reading and study of the ul of Bible , now for the ﬁrst time tr y a book the people . They began to preach a fresh message drawn from the prophets and the gospel to their ﬂocks . The popular response i was immed ate, and they found them it selves, without intending , the champions n of a new cause . AS Zwi gli moved forward to Of secure a reformation the Swiss Churches, these men gladly j oined and were content

n . to follow his leadi g They soon discovered , however, that he was moving toward a reformation which was far to o restrained and limited to suit their conception of what the times demanded . They engaged in public discussions with him and found that he was voicing the reforming aims of the nobles and upper classes but was un respon

t i c a ter all c n i d er th e An a a tis t and th e In h s h p I sh o s b p s , ” a l e te to th e i t al e me next ch pter wi l b d evo d Sp ri u R for rs . ’ MAN S ATTE MPT AT R EFOR MATION 1 0 1 sive to the deep needs of the masses whom they represented . Gradually they felt com pelled to deviate from the course which Zwingli was steering and to proclaim a more radical programme . They came across the writings ” of of the new prophets the people , Mii nzer Thomas and Carlstadt , and they deeply sympathised with the aspirations for a more inward religion which these men voiced, but they thoroughly disapproved of ’ Mii nzer s support of popular insurrecti on and his passionate appeal to the Oppressed to use the sword . They declined to employ the world’ s way to success and trusted wholly to the inherent power of ideal s and to the invisible help of God . They felt from the first that they were to be a remnant of the true Church . What they demanded as the most urgent need of the times was the complete reformation of the Church to make it fit the New Testament . They insisted first of all that the Church of Christ must be

of . a congregation believers Only those , ai ai they cl med, who have hearts of f th , l Spiritual insight , obedient wills and rea religious experi ence can compose a Christian u of Church . A mixed m ltitude good and of i bad, saints and S nners, cannot make a true

Church . The historical compromise with the i of world, the scal ng the Christian standards,

down to the level of the nominal, secular membership seemed to them to be the greatest source of the apostacy of the 1 02 THE RE MNANT

n ow Church . They proposed to wipe the to Slate clean , to make a new start and l of form a Church consisting on y Christians, only of the faithful . It seemed to them that of i the custom baptizing nfants , who from the of nature the case could not exercise faith , of was one fertile cause the degeneracy . It stood in their eyes as the mark of apostacy from Apostolic Christianity , somewhat as

out . circumcision stood , for St Paul in the as ul Galatian controversy , the pec iar mark of Judaistic legalism . If the Church were henceforth to be p ure and Christian , then it must have n o rites and practices which did not al and attach directly to person faith , it must have no members who had not positively experienced in their own souls a li v mg faith . They had little primary interest in sacraments at best , since their main concern was for a al strongly ethic and social Christianity , but they believed that the primitive Christians practi se d baptism as an outward Sign of an Inward experience and as a testimony of fellowship in a visible Church . They pro posed therefore to restore baptism to this

. 1 2 primitive , apostolic function In 5 5 Grebel baptized Blaurock , a devoted Christian man and on e of the band of preachers who had accepted the radical attitude . o f Blaurock thereupon, in deep fear God , baptized many others and a community of ” i brothers , as they l ked to call themselves , began to grow and to differentiate from th e

1 04 THE R E MNANT must be excluded by ban from membership

t. e . in the Church , , there must be a con

tinuous use of the winnowing fan . (4) The Church must be completely severed from all

entangling alliance with the State . The Church and State have offi cially nothing in

common . Membership in the former is a o o m free act . There must be no kind f c pulsion in Spiritual matters . Through faith and experience the Church lives and grows

and enlarges its fellowship . It inﬂuences the character of those who form the State

but its authority is indirect , not direct . In the Sphere of religion the State h as no authority conscience in its relation with God i s to be absolutely free and untrammelled . (5) All Christians have the same fundamental a rights s the clergy have . There are no

di . classes , no orders, no ﬁxed stinctions The only differences are di fferences of gift

. 6 and function ( ) The movement tended, or though more less unconsciously , to treat ” as to the Gospel a new law , be literally l was fol owed and obeyed , very much as done in the earlier groups of Waldenses and

Lollards . Under this inﬂuence most branches of to ak the Anabaptists refused t e oaths , s et themselves absolutely against war, and denied that a Christian is allowed under any i c rc-umstances to take human life, even in self defence . With this rigorous literalism they also j oined a moral strictness of life more extreme than that which marked any ’ MAN S ATTE MPT AT R E FOR MATION 1 9 5

s R other ection of the eformation , even that of n ot the Calvinistic Churches . (7) They of only proclaimed freedom conscience , they bore a powerful testimony to the august i authority of consc ence . They arrived at the conviction that conscience is an inner of sanctuary or shechinah God Himself , and here as nowhere else they believed the voice of the living God is heard . With this exalted sense of an in ner connection with th e divine , they suffered and died for what seemed to them eternal truth and everlasting i s o righteousness , and in do ng they gave a new note of emphasis to the moral worth of o r c nsc enc e . Two of e very powerful leaders , G rman i orig n and education , soon threw in their lot with the Swiss dissenters and stood out at of once as the prophets the new movement , Hii bmai er Balthazar , born near Augsburg in 1 80 Den ck 4 , and Hans , a Bavarian , born Hubmai er about 1 495 . was a doctor of on e theology , of the best scholars of his time , u a humanist , a mystic , a powerf l preacher , a - high minded, pure hearted , brave man , and i 8 n 1 2 . ﬁnally, 5 , a martyr His watchword on - of was used the title page his little books , ” i al ai ai Truth is mmort , and he m nt ned , truth ulti even in the face of death , that el wi n mat y s in any contest . He accepted in ’ full measure Luther s claim that fai th ’ the soul s attitude of trust and conﬁdence — in God is the fundamental basis of 1 06 THE REMNANT

Christianity . Only he went farther with the principle than Luther did and carried it out more consistently . Nothing in the Sphere of religion can be accomplished , he held , without i f insight , faith , Obed ence, e fort , conformity of R heart and will with God . eligion must be i r al f . R from first to last a Spi tu a fair ites , or ceremonies , magical sacerdotal perform an ces cannot alter the ethical and inherent f ” o . facts life God, he declared in his ” A lo - o of . p gy , will have none our Baal cries Hii bmai er With this central position fixed , laboured valiantly to secure a reformation of the Church consonant with the Spiritual character of apostolic Christianity . I ” believe , he wrote , and confess a holy of catholic Church , which is a communion of i saints , a brotherhood devout and believ ng men . Very large numbers were convinced ’ by Hubmai er s preaching and when his lips were sealed by the faggots in Vienna he had already carried his interpretation of religion ' into many lives In Swiss and Austrian towns . 1 Denck belongs very definitely among the ” spiritual reformers , but he was for a time i dentified with the Anabaptists and he un doubtedly exerted a very strong influence upon the movement in its early stage , though as his insight deepened and his views matured his interpretation of Christianity took a

’ Hii bmai er s T l i cles o F i th we ve A rt f a . 1 Iti s esti mated that pe rson s beca me Anabaptis ts in an d a nd N ikols b r e rea ed rou u g where Hubmai r p ch .

1 08 THE R E MNANT

martyrs before God , and that those who perish on the peasant side are everlasting - f hell The long su fering peasants , driven to the limit of endurance by their intolerable condition and inspired by the h Op e which the dawning reformation gave im them , made their assault against the movable wall Of German authority and

. of failed Munzer, the Spiritual champion

their aspirations , went to death with them . of The early Anabaptist leaders , most

whom owed much to the dynamic , if not of Mii nzer wisely directed , zeal , disapproved of the appeal to force and s et themselves of against insurrection . The Zurich society Mii nzer brothers wrote to in September ,

1 2 . 5 4 , urging him not to resort to violence For them the gospel was a gospel of peace and its love . They say ! The Gospel and ul followers Sho d not be guarded by the sword, so neither shall they guard themselves , as , by what we hear from the Brethren , ye assume

and pretend to be right . Truly believing of Christians are sheep in the midst wolves , sheep ready for the slaughter they must be baptized in fear and in need , in tribulation and death , that they may be tried to the last , and the atherhood o etern al ea ce enter f f p , not with carnal but with Spiritual weapons . They ” use neither the sword nor war. j In Spite

' Lut er ra ct Wi der d i e M orderi s chen a nd R a ilberi schen h s T , t n uern R ot e d er B a .

L tter ri te e n zer 1 e w t n by Gr bel to Mii . ’ MAN S ATTEMPT AT R EFOR MATION 1 09

of this gentle attitude , which beyond ques tion characterised the main c urrent of the ul pop ar reformation , all existing authorities of both Church and State , were seized with intense antipathy toward these Spiritual of strivings the common man , rose in might out and stamped them in blood and ﬁre . All the early leaders were either killed out right Or s o severely treated that death over took them prematurely . The members of the group of brothers were dealt with as pests and outcasts, harried , imprisoned , banished , forced to live like beasts in dens and caves of the earth . It is impossible to tell what would have been the social and Spiritual effect of this popular movement en thusi which apparently , j udging from its o l asti beginnings , wou d have swept in the — common people of all countries if it had al i * been lowed to develop and real se its aims . Its un ﬁrst leaders were honest , Sincere,

ﬁ . sel sh men They had no hostile intent . They sought n o personal power or agg ran i d semen t. They had no Spirit of hate . They were ﬁred with no class animus . They wanted to be a remnant of the true Church and to restore Christianity to its original of place of power as a way life and love . ’ Denck s Lan en mantel One of disciples, Hans g ,

Even i n th e face of th e terri ﬁ c pers ecuti on that came d own u n i t as n as i t b e an t ere ere man t u an d A n a po soo g , h w y ho s s of b a ti t i n i d d le -E ur e a n d i t h as b ee e i mate d t at p s s M op , n st h e re ut to d ea t in llan d al ne u th e ﬁ re w p h Ho o , tho gh gu s are robabl too lar e. , p y g 1 1 0 THE R E MNANT said ! The highest command of God i s ‘ love ! Love the Lord thy Go d with all a thy heart and thy neighbour s thyself . They denied that it is right to try to gain

Spiritual ends by violence and sword . They trusted everything to the immortal power of truth , to the transforming force of ideas . They meant to inaugurate a Church which would expand and ﬁnally become the

Kingdom of God on earth . They found a

Golgotha instead . of The fury the persecution , the appalling of i method answering their dumb asp rations , produced at once a new type of leader and drove many of the Anabaptists toward fanaticism . Melchior Hoffman of Stras bourg and his di sciples are a different type from those whom I have so far considered .

Always inclined to literalism , the movement now focussed upon a fervid expectation of the fulﬁlment of millennial hopes . Hoffman became the prophet of an intense chiliasm and even proclaimed that the Sword might be used to hasten the expected Kingdom Of

Go d . His Dutch disciples , J an Matthys and Brockelson J an , pushed the fanaticism of the radical wing to its wildest limit and gave to the world by the Spectacle of the Munster kingdom a reason for the feeling of horror towards Anabaptism and an excuse , after the “ for ex termin ati on ﬁ fact , its method of thorough

an Hut a d i ci le Mii n zer al reac ed a cal ti c H s , s p of , so p h po yp u unli e d man h e remai ed n on - i s t k e t t. hope , ho gh, Ho , n r s s an

1 1 2 THE R E MNANT

on e o r ot E . in way another, g into ngland They merged with the Lollards and in some cases managed to escape the ﬁres of Smith o ﬁeld . They helped t form the numerous groups of heretics and dissenters which swarmed during the freer time of the English

Commonwealth . They formed also the early nucleus of the famous Baptist Societies out of which the Baptists sprang . THE EXPER IMENT OF THE SPI R ITUAL

R EFOR MER S .

THE l other fundamenta tendency , which in the former chapter I have called the aim at a ” spiritual reformation , was even more b viscous , or fluid , than was the Ana aptist movement , less compact and unified . One reason for the lack of organisation and solidi fic ati on i s to be found in the strong mystical aspect of this reformin g movement . Its leaders were hostile to systems . They were in revolt against dogmas and they were equally Opposed to the tyranny of auth ori tati v e - , state controlled ecclesiastical insti i tut ons . They wanted to escape alike from R a Hellenised and a omanised Christianity . They s aw no way to solve the problem without a complete Shift of emphasis from the outward to the inward . The visible Church had tightened itself around the human Spirit un til n o free area or independent Sphere of ’ activity seemed left for man s soul in its own or right . These minor prophets of the R ef of mation were primarily prophets the soul , of champions the free Spirit . They had no i arch tectonic genius . They fe lt n o interest in rearin g either structures of logic or insti 1 1 4 THE R E MNANT tuti on al structures . Like Copernicus, they pro an d was posed a new centre , their new centre ’ al man S soul . They were ways thin kingg and was from writing about the Church , but it first to last an invisible Church about which they were concerned , not the visible and empirical one . It is in this point that they diff er most from the Anabaptists with whom they had close sympathy and often warm fellowship . The Anabaptists were eager to create a new visible Church and they took the written word of Scripture as their charter ” for it . The Spiri tual reformers accepted neither of these attitudes . They found the of ultimate basis religion in the Word of God, of Go d the Light , revealed in the interior life of of man, and they thought the Church as a Spiri tual organism of illuminated and inwardly guided persons . They were deeply read in the books of the German and Flemish E R ec mystics ckhart, Tauler, uysbro k , Theolo i a German i ca n of g , the writi gs the ” Friends of God and The I mi tati on of Chri s t , but they were almost as much e influenced by the Humanists, esp cially by hi s ai n Erasmus . They shared f th in huma freedom, his strong emphasis on the ethical c of i aspe t the true Christ an life , his dislike of theological dogma and hi s a preciation of ‘ ‘ p’ the pure and sirn ple gospel . They were mystics but they were distinctly a new type of mystic . Through their dislike for theo logy and metaphysics they allowed the

1 1 6 THE R E MNANT

1 2 Moravia in 5 7 , and Sebastian Franck , Don aq rth S chwabi a 1 born at in in 499, are

other early exponents of the Spiri tual ideals . S chwen ckfeld Caspar , born at Liegnitz in 1 8 Lower Silesia in 4 9, was more distinctly interested than these other leaders were in the formation of a visible society— those of ” as the middle way , he called his rem - nant and he created a brotherhood that h as his survived to the present time , but ideas and ideals were o f the general type which I am calling the aim at a spiritual lli o . Caste reform Sebastian , a French of humanist and Opponent Calvin , born near 1 1 Co o rnh ert Geneva in 5 5 , and Dirck , a prominent Dutch scholar, born in Amsterdam In 1 2 2 of 5 , are two the noblest interpreters of these Spiritual ideals and aspirations . They were all strongly indi vidualistic and they felt too little the importance of the help i of a visible community . They had a na ve , uncritical and unquestioning faith in inner divine guidance and personal revelation . ” “ o f o i s The Kingdom God, Den k says , in y ou and he who searches for it outside Go d himself will never find it , for apart from on e no can either seek or find God , but he who seeks Go d already in truth h as Him and again ! He who does n ot know God from God Himself does not ever know Franck is a still more confident apostle

’ Fr m De a etc an m n ch two tr ct Was eredet sc . d Vo o s s , g y ,

Gesetz Gottcs . THE SPI RITUAL R EFOR M ERS 1 1 7 of the inner way . Many , he says, know and teach only what they have picked up and gathered in “ without having experienced it ” in the deeps o f themselves . Hearing people “ read and talk about Go d is all a dead ” thing . The real Christian must go inside an d have the experience for But in Spite of the fact that they seem s o individualistic and concerned with personal exp erience in their own souls, they are s oci al in emphatically their sympathies . Like the Anabaptists they are interested in the common man . They all alike make love of , actual human love , the mark fellow ship with Christ . They show a fresh interest in man for his own sake . They all , with the of S chwen ckf eld exception , deny the de pravity o f man an d they refuse ut terly to f accept the dogma o unfree will . They realise that human life is a frail and tragic i s affair, but it , nevertheless , big with s Spiritual possibilitie , and the most splendid l O E E R Y IN fruit of ife is love . T HAT VE TH G ’ IN DE R OVE Denck s THAT H S L , is ideal of ’ ' as telli o life . 1 C declares that Christ s way Yo u al always means love . [mean ing C vin] ou us may return to Moses if y will , but for ”

h h as . others C rist come 1 Love , he con stan tl of y insists , is the supreme badge any of true Christianity , the traits the beatitudes

’

F a ck a rad x a rr d e sec . 1 . an d as si m r n s P o , Vo e , 3 p .

Vom Gcs etz G ttes . 1 2 . f o , p ’ tellio ib n 1 Cas s Contra L ellum Calvi i . 1 1 8 THE R EMNANT in a person’ s life are surer evidence that he belongs to Christ’ s family than is the fact that he holds orthodox Opinions on obscure questi ons of belief . To burn a ” out i s n o t man , he cried , to prove a truth , it is to burn a man This emphasis upon ov l e was with them not a literary device . They talked and wrote much about it because it was the central feature o f the gospel - a which they had re di scovered . They pr c ti sed love in the hard and diﬂi cult world h O e of their time . They would not even p for divine j udgment upon their enemies and u l n ot Opposers , beca se they wou d attribute to God traits of character which they counted unethical and unspiri tual in themselves

‘ ﬁglFran ck h as expressed as well as any of the

group , the way they felt about the invisible Church The true Church is n ot a separate of to mass people , not a particular sect be o ut pointed with the ﬁnger , not conﬁned to one time or place ! it i s rather a Spiritual and invisible body of all the members of of on e Christ , born of God, mind , Spirit and on e faith , but not gathered in any external

t . i ci y or place It is a Fellowsh p , seen with e al th Spiritu eye and by the inner man . It is the assembly and communion of all truly - - - God fearing , good hearted , new born persons

in all the world , bound together by the Holy Spirit in the peace of Go d and the bonds of — love a Communion outside of which there i s no salvation, no Christ , no God, no compre

1 20 THE R EMNANT

heavenly army , as often as a poor sinner o f repents , the body Christ becomes larger , the His King more Splendid , kingdom stronger, His might more All these men have but the slenderest interest in sacraments . Sacraments have become for them what circumcision was for

St . Paul when he wrote neither circum c i si on availeth anything nor uncircumcision , ” n f l but a new creation . S chwe ck e d treats this matter more profoundly than any of the others . He meditated long and deeply upon the question , studying the New Testament l both broad y and minutely , while at the same time he gave much thought to the funda o mental nature f the religious life . He took

Judas as his test case . He argued that if baptism and the supper were efficacious in themselves then Judas , who received the ' supper from the Lord Himself , would have been saved by it . If the bread and wine were changed into actual body and blood of Christ then he must have eaten of Christ and par taken of His divine Nature , but no corres ponding change o f spirit appears in him . He came out from the supper and immedi hwenckfeld ately revealed an evil Spirit . S c ’ finds the key to Christ s teaching on Spiritual life in the J ohannine account of eating ’ Christ s flesh and drinking His blood . This o f fo r assimilation Christ is him not a figure , al not a symbol , but a centr fact . The risen

’ wen kfeld s ri ten 2 0 S ch c S ch . . f , II p . 9 THE SPI R ITUAL R EFO R MER S 1 21

and gloriﬁed Christ , the incorruptible life -Man giving substance of the God , is the of essential , necessary source Spiritual life for men . He must become the actual food

. on c of the soul Not rare o casions , but of continually , the true nature Christ must be received and assi milated into the inner sub r N o stance of ou human Spirits . symbol can be a substitute for that actual experience . Go d must himself , apart from all external means, through Christ touch the soul , Speak s al in it , work in it , if we are to experience The Church which these reform ers were endeavouring to create was thought o f as a communion or fellowship of persons who were drawn together and united by their intimate Spiri tual relation with the living was th e i Christ . It a Church after Sp rit and iIn eri al e o f not an p institution , poss ssed magical authority , employing mysterious sacraments or holdi ng a ﬁnal deposit of infallible doctrine . It was to be an organism N o rather than an organisation . outward ” i S chwen ckfeld un ty , or uniformity , wrote , ul either in doctrine or ceremonies , or r es or sacraments , can make a Christian Church ni of ri of but inner u ty Spi t , heart , soul and o f conscience in Christ , and in the knowledge

Him , a unity in love and faith , does make a ” Church of Chri st. j

’ S ch wen ckf eld s S chri ten i 6 8b f , . p . 7 .

S hri ten i 8 1 c f , p . 7 5 . 1 22 THE R E MNANT

1 Jacob Boehme , born in Silesia in 575 , more completely than any other Single - continental interpreter , gave a many sided expression to the faith and aspiration of these * l o Spiritual leaders . He is the cu mination f the movement . There are many other strands

of inﬂuence in Boehme , especially the theo Sophical and alchemic ideas derived from o f Agrippa Nettesheim , Paracelsus and o Weigel . This latter stock f inheritance to proved a heavy weight this great tragic ,

i . but surely divinely inspired, myst c The f barbarous terminology, the ba ﬂing symbol l m o f isms, and the literary i itations this Silesian prophet were always a tremendous o f handicap , but in Spite all the obstacles , difﬁculties and hindrances a real heavenly vision and a living message break through ’ and get revealed in Boehme s books . His most important permanent contribution to Christianity is to be found in his in terp re tati on of what he calls the process of s alvati on as wa o i i a y f l fe . Here he is unm stakably ” n ot a Spiritual reformer . He will put up as with Schemes or notions . He sets himself strongly against the substitution of doctrines of salvation for an experienced process of salvation as Luther did against the sub sti ” tuti on o f . works for faith Thou thyself , ’ he says , must go through Christ s whole

” ' j ourney , and enter wholly into His process . 1

Th e i ﬂ ence S ch wen kfeld i s m t m k n B e me n u of c os ar ed i o h . ' Tr e R e entan ce 1 u p .

1 24 THE R EMNANT

. 1 the continent He was born in 575 , the year Boehme was born he was a master of arts di and doctor of vinity from Clare College ,

Cambridge . He was a student of the great — mystics and later in life after he was fifty h e translated tracts by Sebastian Franck and ’ Hans Denok and Castelli o s edition of The ” Golden Book of German Di v i n iti e . ’ E The Gos el verard s later sermons , printed in p Trea sury Open ed give the same general interpretation of Christianity which his Con tin ental forerunners gave . He was , before everything else , a good man . He was , too , o f a man undoubted depth and power , and he shows both style and humour . Though s o often imprisoned that King J ames I . suggested that his name should be changed r from E verard [Ev e out] to Dr . Never ” out was , yet his influence great and he is almost certainly the first man in England to hold and teach in any impressive way the V o iews f the Spiritual reformers . He had important disciples and many successors . The most noted of the disciples was Giles R andall , another translator of Spiritual and

. R mystical books Francis ous , Peter Sterry , John S altmarsh and William Dell are good examples of the kind of successors whom E verard had . Meantime other developments were under way which carried the ideas of the Spiritual reformers forward into the popular com sci ousness more extensively than did the books THE SPIR ITUAL R EFOR MER S 1 25 and sermons of these Cambridge and Oxford of scholars . Groups the common people formed into little societies and worked out o ut-of- - in practice , in quiet , the way places, the ideals of these teachers . Attempts of this sort were Often made In Germany , where they were generally soon suppressed . In l e Ho land th y were much more su-ccessful and in that country , where a semi freedom of

s . con cience was allowed , small sects ﬂourished The most important of these independent of sects were the societies the Collegiants, who held the fundamental ideas of the

Spiritual reformers , with the added belief that th-e present existing Church is only an interim church and that Go d will soon send a new apostle , supernaturally endowed and equipped, to be the beginner , the founder, of the true Church of Christ . For this event they looked and waited and thus were called ” Seekers . They held that no one had the efﬁcacious authority to administer sacraments r f o to b-e the bearer o an authoritative ministry message . They therefore met in silence and waited for the Spirit to direct own them . They looked after their poor , — watched carefully over the moral life the f walk and conversation -o their member ship . They were socially minded and made love and fellowship the marks of their com munion . They were Opposed to oaths , and u for to the taking of h man life any reason , an d in other ways they showed their con 1 26 THE R EMNANT

’ necti on with the common man s reformation in the sixteenth century . During the period of the English Commonwealth numerous groups of similar sects appeared in England .

They had strong , substantial members and for their leaders , they had unordained leaders , Man were able men and excellent guides . y other sects swarmed as the degree of free o f dom increased . There were groups the o f wh o of Family Love , were followers the i n mystic , Henry Nicholas , born Westphalia in 1 501 . There were R anters who were pantheists and frequently were morally loose and antinomian . In the years between 1 646 and 1 6 6 1 all the writings of Jacob Boehme were translated into English and n ow became a positive and powerful force , pro foun dly inﬂuencing such intellectual men as M * Sir Isaac Newton and J ohn ilton , and formin g the basic religious conceptions o f many less noted persons . All these lines , of including the group Anabaptists , converge and receive their consummate expressi on i n of the Society Friends , which , under the of leadership George Fox , Spread throughout th e E 1 6 8 1 6 1 nglish counties between 4 and 9 , the latter date being the year of George Fox’ s death . M ore important , however , than the form ation of any religious organisation was the Silent propagation of truths and ideas which Spread across the world as winged seeds ﬂy

' S ee Baile i lt n an d acob B ehme N ew Y rk y s M o j o ( o ,

1 28 THE R E MNANT ideals n o our are t ideals . Their conception

of the Church is largely dead or dying . We

are , it must be admitted , not in the world

of the Spiritual reformers , but at the same time o ur their ideals are much more nearly ideals, ri r their Spi t is kind ed with ours and , if they could return to life again they would feel at home with those who are n ow endeavouring to of i build the Kingdom God , and would j o n heartily in Spiritual commun ion and fellow ship with those who are trying to carry the ideals of Christ into the actual life of the

Church and the world . THE QUAKER SEED - GE OR GE FOX ( 1 6 2 4 1 6 91 ) and the other propagators of Quakerism in the seventeenth century always thought of their movement as the seed ” of the true Church and a of living seed of the Kingdom God . They used the word seed in two Senses in their abundant writings . It meant primarily something of God implanted in the s oul of man and was often called by them ” ”

o r . Light , Light Within No less often they applied to this divine bestowment in the ’ hidden centre o f a man s being the word ” “ ” or Seed , immortal Seed , or invisible “ ” attri Seed , or Seed of God , and they buted to this gift of grace all the spiritual processes and attainments which come to adorn and equip the full-grown Christian

life . In its other and secondary use the word seed (Spelled with a small initial letter) refers to that vital germ or nucleus of the true Church o f Christ which already exi sts in the world though only in its incipient and s eed of potential stage , but being , it is full promise and carries in itself the h Op e of the I 30 THE R E MNANT

ﬁnal triumph of the Spiritual forces o f the of world . Fox did not conceive himself i n au as the founder of something new , the g r u ator of o n e more novel protestant sect . He thought of himself as the gatherer of the al Spiritual seed , already quick and vit , but , scattered over the world and unorganised ,

an invisible Church without outward form . In the early period of his ministry (1 6 52 ) on Fox had a remarkable vision Pendle Hill , of in the eastern edge Lancashire , when he says the Lord let me see a g reat people ” l to be gathered , which later he cal s i great people n white raiment . These white raiment people waiting to be gathered had been seekers but were now to be the seed not merely of the Society o f of Friends , but the seed the true

Church and kingdom of God , which should Fox some day , believed, be as wide as the human race . When he first rode into Scotland in his ‘ work of gathering the George Fo x had a very clear inward sense that there were some prepared souls there waiting to be ’ brought in . When I first set my horse s feet upon Scottish ground , he says , I Go d felt the seed of to Sparkle about me , like ” “ ” o f innumerable Sparks fire . There is , o f he adds , abundance thick cloddy earth of hypocrisy and falseness above , and a briery , brambly nature which is to be burnt with ’ God s word , and ploughed up with his Spiritual

1 3 2 THE R E MNANT

O e well . They were cherishing the h p that G o d would send someone in true apostolic power to gather together into one living whole ’ the members of Christ s Church and to restore Christianity to its original power as a a way of life . This aspiration w s very wide

Spread and intense . It was not conﬁned to ” groups which bore the name of Seekers . of It was shared , too , by the best the

Anabaptists , by the Lollard groups who had formed and nourished their lives upon the

Gospels , by the mystical brotherhoods who ” of of bore the name Family Love , by the devoted English disciples of J acob Boehme (Behmen) and by the men who had come o f of Den ck under the inﬂuence the writings , Castelli o ad Franck and , and h translated them into current English thought— men E R like John verard , Francis ous , J ohn Win Saltmarsh , William Dell and Gerrard E stanley . Both in ngland and America there really was a great seed ” to be gathered of and the Quaker Publishers Truth , as these early propagators were called , knew how to gather this seed effectively . The essential ideas which appeared in th e early Quaker writings emphatically appear also in the books of these remnant fore runners . The same fundamental strivings move both the earlier and the later groups . The same determination to restore primitive

Christianity is in evidence . The same ethical ideals, even the same peculiarities and THE QUAKER SEED 1 33

scruples of conscience come to light again . The same elemental conception of man and the same aspiration for a reorganised and puriﬁed social order dominate both the Spiritual predecessors and the Quaker seed as it was gathered in by Fo x and his helpers . We have in early Quakerism the convergence of of ab sor many lines Spiritual travail , the p tion of many movements looking toward the

Kingdom of Go d . It was one more positive attempt to produce a remnant or seed ” of the true society which God intends to create here in His world . Let us n ow‘ endeavour to gather up and review the essential characteristics of this ” Quaker seed , this seventeenth century ” remnant . It was undoubtedly the primary concern of George Fo x to restore the Church and raise it to its destined place in the Spirit ual life of the world . His supreme interest lay in the Sphere of religion . He possessed a peculiarly sensitive organisation and he belonged to the psychological type of persons from which mystics and prophets come . He could not satisfy his soul with the usual secondhand knowledge about God . The pious phrases which he heard from the pulpit seemed to him hollow , empty and unreal . He was determined to attain to another kind of knowledge . He longed to have a warm and intimate personal acquaintance with God . The story of his long quest for reality makes the early pages of his journ al an unusually 1 34 THE R E MNANT

interesting human document . What he so

eagerly sought he ﬁnally found , and to his unspeakable j oy it became luminously clear to him that God is not o ff somewhere at the far end of the long ladders which men have set laboriously up in order to reach Him , but

that He is a God very near at hand , at the ’ very gate and threshold of man s own inner “ ” life . I knew God experimentally , he

declares in the rapture of his discovery . I ” o n e wh o was , he adds , as has a key and ” doth Open . It is always like the ﬁnding of a master key to all mysteries when one discovers that God is not to be thought of as a distant b eing of of at the end a chain causes , at the con e o r lusion of a syllogism , above the sky in of behind the phenomena nature , as the i Judge of the Ass zes at the end of time , a being to be accepted by a tour d e force on the authority of a dogma or priest ! that He is rather the very ﬂame of moral passion in

our souls , revealed in some measure where ever conscience condemns a low selﬁsh aim and pushes o ne of us up the Slope towards a common good which can be shared with

many . It was here within that the young weaver of the English Commonwealth found Go d c o Him as a living , forever creative ,

Operative , loving and redemptive . It at once seemed to him the most important mission o f his life to help other people to get this experience of God and to live sensitively

1 36 THE R EMNANT

of they that cannot , ﬁnd a place relief for them would not that be a grace to you He was extraordinarily sensitive to human suffering but he was even more sensiti ve to feel the tragedy o f the unrealised possibility

of life . Wherever life was being made futile and abortive he felt a commission to challenge the hampering and constrictive conditions . c So ial habits , such as drinking of intoxicants

in taverns , ﬁghting and quarreling , cozening

and cheating , lying and dissembling , stirred him deeply because he saw the real life of

man being lost where these habits prevailed , and when people professed to be Christians and to belong to the Church and still did these things the profession ” seemed to i him va n and hollow . The luxury which he s aw being practised by rich church members while multitudes of people were f living in want , su fering and privation , ‘ ” struck at his life , to use his forcible phrase , and presented an unendurable Situation to

him . E xtravagant fashions and artiﬁcial hi m forms of etiquette seemed to intolerable , because they loaded life with unnecessary

burdens , and tended to make men and women

l . insincere , unnatural and hypocritica They entailed the use of words and phrases which di d mean were not true , which the users not

and which were servile and ﬂat tering . Class distinctions appeared to him even more

Oppressive to the true life of man . He proposed to cut straight through this THE QUAKE R SEED 1 37 tangle of show and formal ism and to have completely done with it . He would restore i i ts sim l fe to rightful honesty , purity and li i t p c y . He highly esteemed a proper grace of manner and due reverence and honour to manhood and womanhood , but he felt that truth was the supreme quality of the soul , and therefore life must be so ordered that truth

Should be honoured and maintained . He would not take an oath because he would not admit that there were two standards o f - — - truth telling one for law courts and o n e for ordinary everyday life . He would not “ ” sa o n e y you to person , because he felt that the plural form o f address had been intro duc ed di to give stinction to the upper class , while thou ” was used for the poor and lowly . He would admit no practices in religion which discriminated against women, and the religious movement which he i n aug urated was a powerful effort to give woman her place of equal comradeship with man . Fox had always an intense sympathy for the man who for any reason was down . The prisoners in the awful j ails of the period peculiarly touched him . The undeveloped races , especially the Negroes and Indians , were frequently on his mind , and he always maintained that something of God a divine potentiality— lay hidden within these people who had not y e t had their ch ance . 1 38 THE R E MNANT On Similar ground he took the absolutist position towards war and every form of - t human life taking . Nothing , he fel , could j ustify the annihilation of personal life with its divine possibilities . There was , to his mind , no limit to the transforming power of love , no frontier where it should ’ o f cease to Operate . One Fox s humble disciples wrote in 1 6 6 1 There is nothing stronger than love it makes an easy passage and drives that back which stands in the way for in the strength o f love one chases a thousand and the army of royalty ” marches forward and takes possession . If the God of all patience hoped and believed o f forever in the divine destiny men , His

children of the Light , who formed the seed o f ul the true Church , they felt , sho d practice the same unending faith and limitless love

in all human relationships . The original Quaker position is ﬁnely expressed in a document written by George Fox and R ichard Hubb erth orn e ln the early days of the English R estoration It says i n part ! Our principle is and our practices have always been to seek peace and ensue it ! to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God , seeking the good and welfare and doing that which tends to the peace o f all . We know that wars and ﬁgh ti ng s proceed from - of . 1 out the lusts men , as James iv 3 , of which lusts the Lord hath redeemed us and All so out of the occasion of war .

1 40 THE R EMNANT them and they should learn to trust and to of practise the higher way , the wisdom love f which is better than weapons o war . This remnant conception is well expressed in two o n e seventeenth century passages , by Isaac o n e R Penington and by obert Barclay . Penington advocating a mission of the faithful and righteous seed says I Speak n ot this against any magistrates or peoples defendi ng themselves against foreign invasions or making use of the Sword to suppress the violent and evil-doers — within their borders for this the present o f state things may and doth require , and a great blessing will attend the sword where it is borne uprightly to that end and its use il will be honourable and, wh e there is need of f a sword , the Lord will not su fer that or Government , those governors to want ﬁtting instruments under them for the managing thereof , who wait on Him in His fear to have the edge of it rightly di rected i s t but yet there a better s ate , which the Lord hath already brought some into , and which nations are to expect and travel towards .

Yea , it is far better to know the Lord to be o n the Defender , and to wait Him daily , and see of the need His strength , wisdom and h e s o preservation , than to never strong and ” skilful in weapons of war . In much the same strain Barclay declares that the present rulers of the Christian world have not learned the full scope of patience and THE QUAKE R SEE D 1 41 love and have not arrived at the pure di spensation of the Gospel .

and , therefore , while they are in di s a that con tion , we shall not y that war , i s al undertaken upon a j ust occasion , to

ul . as gether unlawf to them For , even cir cumci si o n and the other ceremonies were for a season permitted to the Jews because that Spirit was not yet raised up in them whereby they could be delivered from such rudiments ! s o the present confessors o f the Christian name , who are yet in the x f i mi ture and not in the patient , su fer ng

Spirit , are not yet ﬁtted for this form of Christianity and therefore cannot be unde fending themselves , until they attain that perfection . But , for such whom Christ has brought hither , it is not lawful to defend themselves by arms , but they ought over all to trust to the It takes immense faith to swing out thus from the main social current o f the world on a unique venture like that and to make an experiment in the practice of love , when everybody else insists that nothing will work o but force . It means ﬂying in the face f hard facts . It is a course of action which i n common sense at once refuses . It volves putting into practice the laws of the Kingdom of God before that Kingdom has al i s re ly come . It a method which passes

’ wo a a e are u ted r m ai te e e t W . Brai t Th s p ss g s qo f o . C hw s e n i d o uake s m 6 1 1 -1 2 S c d er n . . o P o f Q , pp 1 42 THE R EMNANT

understanding and more o r less deﬁes the

long established habits of the race . These

Friends , however were absolutely convinced that God had Opened to them the true way o f life—His divine way—and had called them to of be the pioneers it in the modern world . They realised only to o clearly that the king of Go d n o t dom had come , but they had an inward sense that it n ever would come until somebody believed in its principles enough to

try them out in actual Operation . They resolved to go forward then and make the al experiment trial and take the consequences . They assumed without further debate that truth can always be trusted to conquer with own ri hteousn es s its invincible forces , that g h as a might of its own that can be matched without fear against the weapons of brass and iron , and that the patient , suffering Spirit by which Christ accomplished the red emp tion of the world is as practical a power as is the eXp losiv e force of gunpowder . of l They knew , course , that the world wou d turn and rend them for their refusal to con form to its ancient ways and customs , but they possessed the undaunted Spirit of pioneers and they decided to go forward and see what would come as the result of their as faith . More and more clearly , time went

on , they perceived that they formed only a ” remnant . The world turned upon them ” ﬁercely and tried to cure them of their folly . They became only the more convinced by the

1 44 THE R E MNANT

all costs to preserve the remnant , even if it were only a remnant of a remnant ! In the nineteenth century a wave of evangelicalism swept over the Society of Friends and pro foun dl y changed its basis of thought , bringing its members into much closer accord with

the evangelical churches . Their peculiari

ties gradually di sappeared . Their exclu i en e s s v s vanished . They came o ut from behind their hedges and took up the public

tasks of corporate life . They entered politics .

They worked for common causes . They came into intimate fellowship with other Christian of bodies . But deep within the heart the membership the old ﬁdelity to the principle o f peace still remained and in the times of testing Friends continued to show a central ’ o loyalty to Christ s way f life . In all the wars of the last hundred years Friends have ofﬁcially declared themselves to be dedi c ated to peace . Where the national appeal for individual loyalty has been peculiarly strong some Friends have always been found in the military forces of their country , but there has always at the same time been a large Quaker remnant ready to suffer to any limit in behalf of the testimony to truth ,

as Friends love to call it . And in the times of peace this same remnant has seriously endeavoured to practise a way of life which would obliterate the seeds of war and take away the occasion for it The group o f the too faithful has been all small , its insight too THE QUAKER SEE D 1 45 feeble and its range of constructive effort to o narrow , but its sincerity has been ﬁne , its h as Spirit brave , and it inspired others to take

to . up a similar loyalty truth In fact , it has ” been and continues to be a seed . THE FUNCTION OF THE R E MNANT

I HAVE very brieﬂy reviewed a few of the outstanding remnant movements in history . Those which I have chosen are all selected from the purview of the Christian Church , and they are only typical Specimens of the - of remnant idea , not an exhaustive list the attempts to attain and realise the ideals of early Christianity . They exhibit , as I said in the Opening chapter , two general types (1 ) the rebel type and (2 ) the type whi ch m i ai s at reform from with n the body . The former breaks away from the main body , gives up h Ope of arriving at the goal by slowly raising the Spiritual level of the original group by efforts from within . It

swarms out from the parent hive , organ i ses its own on independent lines , becomes s di a propagandist of the truth , make sciples wherever it can effectively carry its appeal and builds up a rival body , alongside the body o from which it went ut. The other method is gentler, more patient , though generally

as or . not intense , rigoristic uncompromising Those who form the second type g o some what beyond the general level of the group

1 48 THE R EMNANT willingness to compromise where compro mise is possible without the surrender of the central prin ciple Some emergencies make the sec ond way futile and impossible and some condi tions make it the only wise and

effective course . n In any case the formation of a rem ant , of o f e one or the other these types , s ems to be historically the most approved method of u i s securing an advancement of the tr th . It devoutly to be hoped that in some happy future time there will exist methods and systems of education which will enable the new-born arrivals to discover what the past

has been about , where it has blundered and w w where it has achieved , and hich ill

direct the instincts , emotions and senti as as in ments of the growing youth , well so form their minds , that they can discover

not merely in solitary instances , but almost

uniformly , how to fulﬁl their potential capacities and to realise the mighty hopes ” that make us men . Our educational

methods are still in an immature stage . We

succeed with a few and fail with the many . While we are waiting for the transformation and transﬁgurati on of education we must old count , as of , upon the leadership of “ ” or prepared groups, remnants , the pro p ag ati on of truth through a concentrated and more or less charged and dynamised

. fellowship , devoted to the forward movement Wh n ot s ll y be atisﬁed, someone wi ask , THE FUNCTION OF THE R E MNANT 1 49 to rely upon the propagation of ideas through books and articles or by public addresses ! Wh ! y form a remnant Well , books and articles and public addresses , except in the rare cases where they come from the pen or of — I lips a genius , leave the great world had — al most sai d the dull stagnant world pretty much unmoved and undi sturbed . A very few people read the propagandist book , or di go to hear the propagan st speech , and those who do read or listen are fo r the most part or already in s-ympathy with the new ideas , at least Open minded enough to exp ose them selves to the danger of conviction . It is extremely easy to leave a book unrea d or to l read it and remain unkind ed . It is easier still to let the lecturer talk to empty benches of our while we follow the pursuits busy , occupied life . These things can be ignored and left on on e Side . They may give us - pin pricks and occasionally j og us half awake , but they do not force us to take Sides . They d o not compel us to choose which cause we will henceforth serve . of on The formation a remnant , the other hand , brings a vigorous challenge . It puts the issue sharply . It breaks the existing o f lethargy . It disturbs the even tenor life . It is hard to ignore a large , militant c l so ial group , kind ed into white heat by the power o f a li ve idea . Whether one wants to read and listen or not , it becomes exceedingly di fﬁ cult to close down the Shutters of the 1 50 THE R E MNANT mind and remain undisturbed when the truth has passed from a single champion into a large social group dedicated to the task of s ee making the larger world it .

A truth gathers validity , weight and

momentum every time it wins a new adherent . We cannot call any fact o r idea truth s o on e to so long as only mind testiﬁes it , long

as it rests only on the insight of o n e person . ma It y be truth , but we cannot say yet that it of must be true . Truth involves an aspect h our necessity and universality . If the t ing ‘

soul discovers is essentially true , we Shall be able in time to rally converts to it and to

build up a body of believers in it . In fact , the only way by which we can try out and test

a fresh idea is in and through a social group . Sometimes a new faith or a new truth sweeps like a Pentecost over the world and possesses a vast multitude of pe0p1es as though they

had been waiting expectantly for it to arrive .

It ﬁ n ds men as soon as it is announced . It establishes itself at once as a truth for which the soul seems to have been fashioned in

advance . Most truths , however , have not as been of that typ e . They appear ﬁrst a

conviction in some single soul . The indi vidual di scoverer trusts his insight enough

to proclaim it . It is both believed and

doubted by the hearers of it . It is both h as o its afﬁ rmed and denied . It t make way ! it must run the gauntlet . He must l h ow i t gradual y learn to defend , how to

1 52 THE R EMNANT

of i of lives together , rebu lding their system thought and action and of enabling them to meet the stern collisions of those wh o are ” determined to put down their truth , we have gained some right to ask whether the eternal nature of things is not in it and backing it . of or Of course , it is not a question votes of maj orities . We cannot make the easy assumption that a thing is true because many persons believe it to be true . Under some psychological conditions almost any un substantial delusion or belief will ﬂoat and l of get mil ions supporters . The fact that a vast number of voters say aye to rwe it does not prove that it is therefore true. cannot be quick pragmatists and fall in vsith the theory that the voice o f the people is i s o cto f a o . p f the voice God But the slow , historical testing out of truth through the of social relationships a loyal group , which l f we may well ca l a remnant , does o fer a valuable method of examining its real o of validi ty . History is one f the surest the j udgment seats in the universe . The Judg ment Day of which the ancient prophets Spoke still remains a mystery about which we have no further light than their words give us are . But the j udgment days of history as certain and veriﬁable as the multipli cation table Ideas and ideals are sifted and ” sorted by an unescapable doom . In the long run the processes of the universe weed THE FUNCTION OF THE R EMNANT 1 53

out that which does not ﬁt the moral nature

and destiny of the race . The remnant thus furnishes on a larger or smaller scale a laboratory experiment for testing the value ' h ere an . T c of an idea , a faith , a truth be no

remnant at all until an idea has come to life ,

dynamic enough to build a coherent group .

Then this coherent group , if it is to persist and prevail , must inevitably stand the uni verse . Itcannot retreat to some other world it must live and work in this one . It must face the laws of the outside and inside world . It can live for a little while on an iridescent e dr am , but if it is to have any wide scope and long duration it must weather the dis ” integrating forces which try every society . It must have substan ce enough to feed thought in a large variety of mi nds and to refashion emotions and reform sentiments . It must furnish staying power and supply those inward forces that make o n e able to endure hatred, repro-ach , ostracism, perse cuti on in its many headed forms and to prefer death itself to disloyalty to the truth or the group . i s of s After all , there cour e no infallible proof to be found here o r anywhere that an inward discovery is true . This social world of ours i s n ot a world of infallibilities . The Sphere of absolute certainty is a very re s ri t cted sphere . We can attain here only to high degrees of probabili ty and to immense confidence in our venture . Every remnant 1 54 THE R EMNANT reviewed in the preceding chapters has stood o ut fo r some phase of truth and Spiritual life which was doubted , questioned and defied of by large numbers contemporaries , but which has since in the winnowings of time of become adopted by multitudes people , confirmed by wide experience and has finally been builded into the conscious or un conscious structure of the moral and religious life of the world . Some other features which once seemed important and even vital and essential to the remnant groups have been suppressed and are lost in the limbo of the dead l years . So it will always be with Spiritua movements . The immediate j udgment of a on e- remnant group is partial , Sided and incapable of seeing its precious faith in the of perspective a distant futurity . Some points of emphasis are likely to be far too great and others perhaps too feeble . As the movement expands and i ts implications come into full view , as the social effects stand as clearly revealed , and the forces of history test and winnow it its truth and its weaknesses r are unveiled . The truths become known fo what they really are . They are no longer the faith of a mere remnant they are the o possession f the whole race .

1 56 THE R E MNANT of obligation is no more raised in that situation than it is raised in the Operations of the organs of the living body .

That is, however , an ideal situation, while under normal conditions the individual finds himself viewing both Church and State as to vast organisations , external him and yet imposing certain duties upon him , proposing certain unalterable principles or laws to which he must conform, Speaking with an authority that is not to be mistaken , laying definite obligations upon him and expecting from him an undivided loyalty . We can hardly overestimate the ethical importance of these two formative forces o f of the world , in their two Spheres influence . Nobody can attain to the full stature of per so n ality except in a society so organised that both the authority of law and the authority of truth make their obligations felt Upon hi s individual life . He must be a citizen of a state with its historical ideals , its inherited - traditions , its forward looking aspirations , its insistence upon obedience to law , its determination to exhibit the consequences of wrong doing . Hardly less essential for the development of full personality is member ship i n an organised body devoted to the transmission of the Spiritual experience of the of past , to the formulation of ideals life and f to the interpretation o truth . We may call the two great formative and stabilising forces by different names and we MISSION AND S ER VICE 1 57 Shall expect that they will become embodied di f in varying forms in ferent epochs of history , but in some form or other both influences for are necessary rich , rightly fashioned personality . The individual must take over - into his o wn self consciousness the gains of past ages . He must gather up through his relationships the lessons of history . He must overcome his erratic traits and tenden cies by learning submission to larger and wiser s -wi lle groups . He must cease to be elf d and di of stubborn . He must scover the dangers being , what the Greeks called , an idiot e um (idiot s) , a private , peculiar , isolated , di al at hi s organised in vidu , the mercy of own

ul . partic ar seemings and desires Diogenes , en a nt terri ble of that f Grecian society , is a “ typical idi ot of this unformed and un il on own civ ised sort . He is, his assumption , ” nl the o y man existing . No lantern is luminous enough to reveal in the world around him any person whom he can recognise as a ” man , all except himself being Spoiled by conformity to social conditions and requirements

Here , then , in the deep and essential al t relationships of soci , conj unc , organic life , our sense of obligation is born . It reaches its most august character in affairs which concern

l i . e . the Fami y , State, and the Church , in l the appea of love , of law and righteousness , and of truth . These visible institutions in each case are the temporary organs or instru 1 58 THE R EMNANT

ments of invisible and eternal realities to which we can hardly rise without the help of

the visible interpretation . Our momentous o f problem , as I said in the Opening this to chapter , is where draw the boundary and limits of obligation to the visible institutions which serve us in a multitude of ways towards the formation and preservation of all that constitutes our higher life . The individual possesses very little indeed which he has not received from the over-individual groups and bodies that have ministered to him from ” the day of his arrival here as a new unit . - s He is n o self made person . He owe h O e vast debts , which he cannot p to pay , to visible and invisible bearers of light and love

and truth . Every institution which assists him to make his gradual advances rests for its life and power upon the heroic deeds and efforts and sacriﬁces of men and women wh o o utof a distant past transmitted this precious gift to him as well as upon the brave and loyal contributions of the present generation that was toiling for him when he arrived . N o t lightly certainly can he g o back o n all -for that has been done him without him , as the theologians put it . He begins life under heavy obligations . Unborn gener ati o ns to o l , , will be profound y affected by the o n way in which he passes the torch , by the way in which he treats the immense accumu lation of gains that have fallen upon him i on of without any cost to him . Obli gat is one

1 60 THE R EMNANT

inﬁnite and eternal reality . There are occa sions when an individual can serve society best ﬁttin l n o t and most g y , by yielding to its conventions nor to its historic customs and estimates nor to its requirements of what is necessary for the preservation of the status uo out q , but by standing under the com pulsion of some vision of advance in the championship of an ideal which ought to prevail but does not yet prevail . If there is vi tali ty to this vision o f advance and if it i s grounded in eternal reality , it will awaken a response in the souls of others and gather a of group loyal supporters, and thus produce emn n a a r a t. We must not s y perhaps that the vision o f one lone individual who j ust ” cries in the wilderness and gets n o fol lowers, is a misguided and abortive vision , pointing towards a blind alley . But there are at least grounds for suspecting the validity of a caus e which does not kindle response in any soul except that of the pioneer of it . I have discussed already in the previous chapter the function of the remnant in testing out the social valuation of a vision or an ideal , and we may safely neglect any “ prophesying ” which does not succeed in rallying and organising any social group of champions . That would be a case , if there on e ever is , of a truth , if it turned out ”

of . to be true , proclaimed ahead its time o n When the other hand , a vision of advance does g et its group of apostles and does organ MISSION AND SER VICE 1 6 1 i se a remnant it would seem clear that the highest call of obligati on in the souls of those who constitute the dedicated group must be to the proclamation and realisation of the vision o r the ideal that points forward to a goal beyond the previous achievements of society even though society itself in the form o f i ts organised institutions en deavours to block and prevent the advance . This is the well-known situation which raises what has been called a rivalry of loyalties , when there is almost sure to be a difference of j udg ment in respect to the line where the highest to obligation lies . Many are ready follow the vision until it leads into conﬂict with the existing organised institutions and involves a refusal to obey the authority o f the body which voices the will of the maj ority . It is here that the hardest choice of life o n lies, and no one the outside can ever pro pose any ﬁxed rule by which a given indi vidual must act in a given case . All one can say is that it may be right , and often has been , and it may be wise , and often has been , of in cases of rivalry loyalties , to stand by the o vision f advance and go with the remnant .

It may in the long run serve society far better , than unquestioning obedience to its con s er v ati v e authority would have served it . Sometimes nothing can count so much as a practical exhibition of utter ﬁdelity to what ou htto be g . It is generally a poor excuse for 1 6 2 THE R E MNANT

action along the line of least resistance to say in a crisis that ideal conditions d o n ot o f exist yet , the Kingdom God has not come , the world is on a lower level of practice and method and therefore we must surrender to the demands o f its old ways and customs and requirements . It is j ust that course which forever postpones the kingdom of the ideal and banishes it to some other world, o ff somewhere in the valley of Avilion . It is the real mission and service of the remnant to go forward with a venture of faith o f and to put its vision of advance , its ideals what ought to be , into practice here and now . It often means moving along the line of greatest resistance . It involves generally a of transvaluation values . It carries with it under most circumstances a collision with old standards and authorities . And it is likely to entail much suffering . It is a path which goes over Golgotha and it will sort out and leave behind those who have an eye to ease and on and quick success . But it is a way the o f whole promoting truth , of advancing the o f o f highest interests humanity , and carry — ing forward the divine work o f creation o f making man and o f bringing in the true social on e order . Its way , however, must be of — modesty , humility and meekness not of boasting and violence . Its way does not admit of claims to infallibility or of bold Its assertion that no other course i s right . i s of way the way of love, the way light , the

TheChri s ti an Rev olution S eri es .

E ite b N N IEL M ICKLEM M A. d d y ATHA , . ,

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HRN RY . E DG K N M . . LAY R E G N . O . LI IO By T . H I , M A , ’ ” t o f The c O t n t i n th e P s t Au hor Chur h s ppor u i y re en Crisis,

etc . 8 vo c e t n . 8 6 d n et Crown . Se ond di io 3 . . . T HE E A R LY C H R I S TIAN A TTITUDE TO W A R n t b t n o th f t n E t e t o t c . . A Co ri u io His ory Chris ia hi s . By C J

. D DOUX . D. L c t e t ﬁe e e x f . a an s O CA , M A , , e ur r M ld Coll g , ord . W W R t F e b the Rev E . O CH RD D . D . . i h or word y . A , Crown

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W R R E ON L A N A N D R EA . FE ON C CI I TIO LITY . By A W “ ” L L D Y . . n n o f the L e Go HA I A , M A , i er arg ld Medal and First Se n ior Mod eratorship in Men tal Sc i en ce an d Moral n ce i n n t D 7 6 et c e b 8 1 0 . n S ie Tri i y Colleg , u lin . Crown . 5 .

An En n t F t Rea t T HE OPE N LIG HT ! quiry i o ai h and li y. N TH EL M I d n et. N C KLEM . s 6 8 vo . . By A A I , M A . Crown 4 .

w W LS N R D THE HR S A N DE A . E . O . C I TI I L . By I ,

8vo . 5 . n et Crown 5 .

T E W AY T PE R A G ro c . R ns n H O S ON LITY . By B o o ,

B. A . t . 8 vo . 3 n et Third edi ion Crown 5 . .

T HE R S OF R E V L ON OHN R . CH I T O UTI . By J

S 5 6 n 5 6 . O T E BA . . d n et a d 2 d n et. C A , 4 . .

D Li r n T E R E MN A RUFUS . . tt. H N T . By M Jones, C ow

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O THER VOLUM ES TO FOLLOW

W R R RE TD THE O E P L . S A THM SS ,

1 OX O D S EE L N DO N W. 1 . 7 , F R TR T, O ,