Church History Part 20

11. _The Darbyites and Adventists._-Related on the one hand to Irvingism by their expectation of the immediately approaching advent and by their regarding themselves as the saints of the last time who would alone be saved, the _Darbyites_, on the other hand, by their absolute independentism form a complete contrast to the Irvingite hierarchism. John Darby, 1800-1882, first an advocate, then a clergyman of the Anglican church, breaking away from Anglicanism, founded between 1820 and 1830 a sectarian, apocalyptic, independent community at Plymouth (whence the name _Plymouth Brethren_), but in 1838 settled in Geneva, and in 1840 went to Canton Vaud, where Lausanne and Vevey have become the headquarters of the sect. All clerical offices, all ecclesiastical forms are of the evil one, and are evidence of the corruption of the church. There is only one office, the spiritual priesthood of all believers, and every believer has the right to preach and dispense the sacraments. Not only the Catholic, but also the Protestant church is a "Balaam Church," and since the departure of the apostles no true church has existed. In doctrine they are strictly Calvinistic.(127)-The _Adventists_. Regarding the 2,300 days of Dan. viii. 14 as so many years, W. Miller of New York and Boston proclaimed in 1833 that the second advent would take place on the night of October 23rd, 1847, and convinced many thousands of the correctness of his calculations. When at last the night referred to arrived the believers continued a.s.sembled in their tabernacles waiting, but in vain, for the promise (Matt. xxiv. 30, 31; 1 Cor. xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17), at "the voice of the archangel and the trump of G.o.d to be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." This miscalculation, however, did not shake the Adventists' belief in the near approach of the Lord, but their number rather increased from year to year. Most zealous in propagating their views by journals and tracts, evangelists and missionaries, is a branch of the sect founded by James White of Michigan, whose adherents, because they keep the Sabbath in place of the Lord's Day, are called _Seventh Day Adventists_.

12. _The Mormons or Latter Day Saints._-Jos. Smith, a broken down farmer of Vermont, who took to knavish digging for hid treasures, affirmed in 1825, that under direction of divine revelations and visions, he had excavated on Comora hill in New York State, golden tablets in a stone kist on which sacred writings were engraved. A prophet's spectacles, _i.e._, two pierced stones which as a Mormon Urim and Thummim lay beside them, enabled him to understand and translate them. He published the translation in "the Book of Mormon." According to this book, the Israelites of the ten tribes had migrated under their leader, Lehi, to America. There they divided into two peoples; the unG.o.dly Lamanites, answering to the modern Redskins, and the pious Nephites. The latter preserved among them the old Israelitish histories and prophecies, and through miraculous signs in heaven and earth obtained knowledge of the birth of Christ that had meanwhile taken place. Toward the end of the fourth century after Christ, however, the Lamanites began a terrible war of extermination against the Nephites, in consequence of which the latter were rooted out with the exception of the prophet Mormon and his son Moroni. Mormon recorded his revelations on the golden tablets referred to, and concealed them as the future witness for the saints of the last days on the earth. Smith proclaimed himself now called on of G.o.d, on the basis of these doc.u.ments and the revelations made to him, to found the church of _The Latter Day Saints_. The widow of a preacher in New York proved indeed that the Book of Mormon was almost literally a plagiarism from a historico-didactic romance written by her deceased husband, Sal. Spaulding. The MS. had pa.s.sed into the hands of Sidney Rigdon, formerly a Baptist minister and then a bookseller's a.s.sistant, subsequently Smith's right-hand man. But even this did not disturb the believers. In 1831 Smith with his followers settled at Kirtland in Ohio. To avoid the daily increasing popular odium, he removed to Missouri, and thence to Illinois, and founded there, in 1840, the important town of Nauvoo with a beautiful temple. By diligence, industry and good discipline, the wealth, power and influence of their commonwealth increased, but in the same proportion the envy, hatred and prejudices of the people, which charged them with the most atrocious crimes. In 1844, to save bloodshed the governor ordered the two chiefs, Jos. and Hiram Smith, to surrender to voluntary imprisonment awaiting a regular trial. But furious armed mobs attacked the prison and shot down both. The roughs of the whole district then gathered in one great troop, destroyed the town of Nauvoo, burned the temple and drove out the inhabitants. These, now numbering 15,000 men, in several successive expeditions amid indescribable hards.h.i.+ps pressed on "through the wilderness" over the Rocky Mountains, in order to erect for themselves a Zion on the other side. Smith's successor was the carpenter, Brigham Young. The journey occupied two full years, 1845-1847. In the great Salt Lake basin of Utah they founded _Salt Lake City_, or the New Jerusalem, as the capital of their wilderness state _Deseret_. The gold digging of the neighbouring state of California did not allure them, for their prophet told them that to pave streets, build houses and sow fields was better employment than seeking for gold. So here again they soon became a flouris.h.i.+ng commonwealth.

13. In common with the Irvingites, who recognised in them their own diabolic caricature, the Mormons restored the apostolic and prophetic office, insisted upon the continuance of the gift of tongues and miracles, expected the speedy advent of the Lord, reintroduced the payment of t.i.thes, etc. But what distinguished them from all Christian sects was the proclamation of polygamy as a religious duty, on the plea that only those women who had been "sealed" to a Latter-day Saint would share in the blessedness of life eternal. This was probably first introduced by Young in consequence of a new "divine revelation," but down to 1852 kept secret and denied before "the Gentiles." The ambiguous book of Mormon was set meanwhile more and more in the background, and the teachings and prophecies of their prophet brought more and more to the front. "The Voice of Warning to all Nations" of the zealous proselyte Parly Pratt, formerly a Campbellite preacher, exercised a great influence in spreading the sect.

But the most gifted of them all was Orson Pratt, Rigdon's successor in the apostolate. To him mainly is ascribed the construction of its later, highly fantastic religious system which, consisting of elements gathered from Neo-platonism, gnosticism, and other forms of theosophical mysticism, embraces all the mysteries of time and eternity. Its fundamental ideas are these: There are G.o.ds without number; all are polygamists and their wives are sharers of their glory and bliss. They are the fathers of human souls who here on earth ripen for their heavenly destiny. Jesus is the first born son of the highest G.o.d by his first wife; he was married on earth to Mary Magdalene, the sisters Martha and Mary and other women. Those saints who here fulfil their destiny become after death G.o.ds, while they are arranged according to their merit in various ranks and with prospect of promotion to higher places. At the end of this world's course, Jesus will come again, and, enthroned in the temple of Salt Lake City, exercise judgment against all "Gentiles" and apostates, etc.-The const.i.tution of the Mormon State is essentially theocratic. At the head stood the president, Brigham Young, as prophet, patriarch, and priest-king, in whose hands are all the threads of the spiritual as well as secular administration. A high council alongside of him, consisting of seventy members, as also the prophets and apostles, bishops and elders, and generally the whole richly organized hierarchy, are only the pliable instruments of his all-commanding will. Every one on entering the society surrenders his whole property, and after that contributes a tenth of his yearly income and personal labour to the common purse of the community.

Soon numerous missionaries were sent forth who crossed the Atlantic, and attained great success, especially in Scotland, England and Scandinavia, but also in North-West Germany and in Switzerland. On removing the misunderstanding that prevailed about their social and political condition, and supplying the penniless out of the rich immigration fund with the means to make the journey, they persuaded great crowds of their new converts to accompany them to Utah.

14. In 1849 the Mormons had asked Congress for the apportioning of the district colonized by them as an independent and autonomous "State" in the union, but were granted, in 1850, only the const.i.tution of a "territory"

under the central government at Was.h.i.+ngton, and the appointment of their patriarch, Young, as its governor. Accustomed to absolute rule, in two years he drove out all the other officers appointed by the union. He was then deprived of office, but the new governor, Col. Sefton, appointed in 1854, with the small armament supplied him could not maintain his position and voluntarily retired. When afterwards in 1858 Governor c.u.mming, appointed by president Buchanan, entered Utah with a strong military force, Young armed for a decisive struggle. A compromise, however, was effected. A complete amnesty was granted to the saints, the soldiers of the union entered peacefully into the Salt-Lake City, and Young a.s.sumed tolerably friendly relations with the governor, who, nevertheless, by the erection of a fort commanding the city made the position safe for himself and his troops. On the outbreak of the war of Secession in 1861 the troops of the union were for the most part withdrawn. But all the more energetically did the central government at the close of the war in 1865 resolve upon the complete subjugation of the rebel saints, having learnt that since 1852 numerous murders had taken place in the territory, and that the disappearance of whole caravans of colonists was not due to attacks of Indians, who would have scalped their victims, but to a secret Mormon fraternity called Danites (Judges xviii.), brothers of Gideon (Judges vi. ff.) or Angels of Destruction, which, obedient to the slightest hint from the prophet, had undertaken to avenge by b.l.o.o.d.y terrorism any sign of resistance to his authority, to arrest any tendency to apostasy, and to guard against the introduction of any foreign element.

The Union Pacific Railway opened in 1869 deprived the "Kingdom of G.o.d" of its most powerful protection, its geographical isolation, while the rich silver mines discovered at the same time in Utah, peopled city and country with immense flocks of "Gentiles." The nemesis, which brought the Mormon bishop Lee, twenty years after the deed, under the lash of the high court of justiciary as involved in the horrible ma.s.sacre of a large party of emigrants at Mountain Meadows in 1857, would probably have also befallen the prophet himself as the main instigator of this and many other crimes had he not by a sudden death two months later, in his seventy-fifth year, escaped the jurisdiction of any earthly tribunal (died 1877). A successor was not chosen, but supreme authority is in the hands of the college of twelve apostles with the elder John Taylor at their head.-Repeated attempts made since 1874 by the United States authorities by penal enactments to root out polygamy among the Mormons have always failed, because its actual existence could never be legally proved. The witness called could or would say nothing, since the "sealing" was always secretly performed, and the women concerned denied that a marriage had been entered into with the accused, or if one confessed herself his married wife she refused to give any evidence about his domestic relations.-Recently a split has occurred among the Mormons. By far the larger party is that of the "Salt Lake Mormons," which holds firmly by polygamy and all the other inst.i.tutions introduced by Young and since his time. The other party is that of the Kirtland, or Old Mormons, headed by the son of their founder, Jos. Smith, who had been pa.s.sed over on account of his youth, which repudiates all these as unsupported novelties and restores the true Mormonism of the founder. The Old Mormons not only oppose polygamy, but also all more recently introduced doctrines. They are called Kirtland Mormons from the first temple built by their founder at Kirtland in 1814, which having fallen into ruins, was restored by Geo. Smith, jun., and became the centre of the Old Mormon denomination. In April 1885 they held there their first synod, attended by 200 deputies.(128)

15. _The Taepings in China._-Hung-sen-tsenen, born in 1813 in the province of Shan-Tung, was destined for the learned profession but failed in his examination at Canton. There he first, in 1833, came into contact with Protestant missionaries, whose misunderstood words awakened in him the belief that he was called to perform great things. At the same time he there got possession of some Christian Chinese tracts. Failing in his examination a second time in 1837, he fell into a dangerous illness and had a series of visions in which an old man with a golden beard appeared, handing to him the insignia of imperial rank, and commanding him to root out the demons. After his recovery he became an elementary teacher. A relative called Li visited him in 1843. The Christian tracts were again sought out and carefully studied. Sen now recognised in the old man of his visions the G.o.d of the Christians and in himself the younger brother of Jesus. The two baptized one another and won over two young relatives to their views. Expelled from their offices, they went in 1844 to the province of Kiang Se as pencil and ink sellers, preached diligently the new doctrine and founded numerous small congregations of their sect. The American missionaries at Canton heard of the success of their preaching, and Sen accepted an invitation to join them in 1847. The missionary Roberts had a great esteem for him and intended to baptize him, when in consequence of stories spread about him their relations became strained.

Sen now returned in 1848 to his companions in Kiang Se, who had diligently and successfully continued their preaching. In 1850 they began to attract attention by the violent destruction of idols. When now all the remnants of a pirate band joined them as converts, they were in common with these persecuted by the government and proclaimed rebels. The expulsion of the hated Mantshu dynasty, which two hundred years before had displaced the Ming dynasty, and the overthrow of idolatry were now their main endeavour, and in 1857 they organized under Sen a regular rebellion for the setting up of a Taeping dynasty, _i.e._, of universal peace. The Taeping army advanced unhindered, all Mantschu soldiers who fell into its hands were ma.s.sacred, and of the inhabitants of the provinces conquered, only those were spared who joined their ranks. In March, 1853, they stormed the second capital of the empire, Nankin, the old residence of the Ming dynasty. There Sen fixed his residence and styled himself Tien-w.a.n.g, the Divine Prince. He a.s.signed to ten subordinate princes the government of the conquered provinces, almost the half of the immense empire. Thousands of bibles were circulated; the ten commandments proclaimed as the foundation of law, many writings, prayers and poems composed for the instruction of the people, and these with the bible made subjects of examination for entrance to the learned order. An Arian theory of the trinity was set forth; the Father is the one personal G.o.d, whose likeness in bodily human form Sen strictly forbade, destroying the Catholic images as well as the Chinese idols. Jesus is the first-born son of G.o.d, yet not himself G.o.d, sent by the Father into the world in order to enlighten it by his doctrine and to redeem it by his atoning sufferings. Sen, the younger brother of Jesus, was sent into the world to spread the doctrine of Jesus and to expel the demons, the Mantschu dynasty. Reception takes place through baptism. The Lord's Supper was unknown to them. b.l.o.o.d.y and bloodless offerings were still tolerated. The use of wine and tobacco was forbidden; the use of opium and trafficking in it were punished with death. But polygamy was sanctioned. Sat.u.r.day, according to the Old Testament, was their holy day. Their service consisted only of prayer, singing and religious instruction; but also written prayers were presented to G.o.d by burning.

16. Sen himself had no more visions after 1837. But other ecstatic prophets arose, the eastern prince Yang and the western prince Siao. The revelations of the latter were comparatively sober, but those of the former were in the highest degree blasphemously fanatical. He declared himself the Paraclete promised by Jesus, and taught that G.o.d himself, as well as Jesus, had a wife with sons and daughters. He was at the same time a brave and successful general, and the ma.s.s of the Taepings were enthusiastically attached to him. Sen humbly yielded to the extravagances of this fanatic, even when Yang sentenced him to receive forty lashes.

Sen's overthrow was already resolved upon in Yang's secret council, when Sen took courage and gave the northern prince secret orders to murder Yang and his followers in one night. This was done, and Sen was weak enough to allow the executioner of his secret order to be publicly put to death so as to appease the excited populace. But he thus again in 1856 became master of the situation.-One of the oldest apostles of Sen, his near relative Hung Yin, had been turned off at Hong Kong. He there attached himself to the Basel missionary, Hamberg, who in 1852 baptized him and made him his native helper. In hope of winning his cousin to the true Christian faith, he travelled in 1854 to Nankin, which however he did not reach till January, 1859. Sen received him gladly and made him his war minister. But his efforts to introduce a purer Christianity among the Taepings were unsuccessful, for he tried the slippery way of accommodation, and under pressure from Sen set up for himself a harem. In October, 1860, on Sen's repeated invitation, his former teacher, the missionary Roberts of Nankin, arrived and was immediately made minister for foreign affairs. The Shanghai missionaries, several of whom visited Nankin, had interesting interviews with Yin in 1860, but not with the emperor, as they refused to go on their knees before him. They were encouraged by Yin to hope for a future much needed purifying of Taeping Christianity. Yang's revelations, however, held their ground after as well as before, and were increased by further absurdities. To such cra.s.s fanaticism was now added the inhuman cruelty with which they ma.s.sacred the vanquished and wasted the conquered cities and districts. Had the European powers ranged themselves in a friendly and peaceful att.i.tude alongside of the Taepings, China might now have been a Christian empire. Instead of this the English, on account of the extreme opposition of the Taepings to the opium traffic, took up a hostile position toward them, while they were also in disfavour with the French, who had been denounced by them as idolaters on account of their Romish image wors.h.i.+p. Down to the beginning of 1862, however, Yin's influence had prevented any hostile proceedings against the Europeans in spite of many provocations given. But after that the Taepings refused them any quarter. Roberts fled by night to save his life. Against disciplined European troops the rebels could not hold their ground. One city after another was taken from them, and at last, in July 1864, their capital Nankin. Sen was found poisoned in his burning palace.(129)

17. _The Spiritualists._-The shoemaker's apprentice, Andrew Jackson Davis of Poughkeepsie on the Hudson, in his nineteenth year fell into a magnetic sleep and composed his first work, "The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations and a Voice to Mankind," in 1845. He declared its utterances to be spiritual revelations from the other world. But his later writings composed in working hours made the same claim, especially the five volume work, "Great Harmonia, being a Philosophical Revelation of the Natural, Spiritual, and Celestial Universe," 1850 ff. Both went through numerous editions and were translated into German. The great spiritual manifestation promised in the first work was not long delayed. In a house bought by the family of Fox in Hydesville in New York State a spectral knocking was often heard. Through the intercourse which the two youngest daughters, aged nine and twelve years, had with the ghosts, the skeleton of a murdered five years' old child of a pedlar was discovered buried in the cellar, and when the family soon thereafter left the house, the ghosts went with them and continued their communications by table turning, table rapping, table writing, etc. The thing now became epidemic. Hundreds and thousands of male and female _mediums_ arose and held an extremely lively and varied intercourse with innumerable departed ones of earlier and later times. The believers soon numbered millions, including highly educated persons of all ranks, even such exact chemists as Mapes and Hare. An abundant literature in books and journals, as well as Sunday services, frequent camp-meetings and annual congresses formed a propaganda for the alleged spiritualism, which soon found its way across the ocean and won enthusiastic adherents for all confessions in all European countries, especially in London, Paris, Brussels, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Dresden, Leipzig, etc. They now broke up into two parties called respectively Spiritualists and Spiritists. The former put in the foreground physical experiments with astonis.h.i.+ng results and miraculous effects; the latter, with the Frenchman Allan Kardec (_Rivail_) as their leader, give prominence to the teaching of spirits by direct communication. The former in reference to the origin of the human soul held by the theory of traducianism; the latter to that of pre-existence in connection with a doctrine of re-incarnation of spirits by reason of growing purity and perfection. The latter see in Christ the incarnation of a spirit of the highest order; the former merely the purest and most perfect type of human nature. But neither admit the real central truth of Christianity, the reconciliation of sinful humanity with G.o.d in Christ. Both evaporate the resurrection into a mere spectral spirit manifestation; and the disclosures and utterances of the spirits with both are equally trivial, silly, and vain.-In England the famous palaeontologist and collaborateur of Darwin, Alfr. Russel Wallace, and the no less celebrated physicist Wm.

Crookes, are apologists of spiritualism. The latter declared in 1879 that to the three well-known conditions of matter, solid, fluid and gaseous, should be added a fourth, "radiant," and that there is the borderland where force and matter meet. And in Germany the acute Leipzig astrophysicist Fr. Zollner, after a whole series of spiritualistic seances conducted by the American medium Slade in 1877 and 1878 had been carefully scrutinized and tested by himself and several of his most accomplished scientific colleagues, was convinced of the existence and reality of higher "four dimension" s.p.a.ce in the spirit world, to which by reason of its fourth dimension the power belonged of pa.s.sing through earthly bodily matter. The philosophers I. H. Fichte of Stuttgart and Ulrici of Halle have admitted the reality of spiritualistic communications and allege them as proofs of immortality. Among German theologians Luthardt of Leipzig regards it all as the work of demons who take advantage for their own ends of the moral-religious dissolution of the modern world and its consequent nerve shaking that prevails, just as in the ancient world in the beginnings of Christianity. Zockler of Greifswald finds an a.n.a.logy between it and the demoniacal possession of New Testament times; so too Martensen in his "Jacob Boehme," and on the Catholic side W. Schneider; while Splittgerber refers most of the manifestations in question to a merely subjective origin in "the right side of the human soul life," but puts the materialization of spirits in the category of delusive jugglery.

Spiritualism has scarcely rallied from the obloquy cast upon it by the unmasking of the tricks of the famous medium Miss Florence Cook in London in 1880 and of the distinguished spirit materialiser Bastian by the Grand-duke John of Austria in 1884.(130)

18. To the domain of unquestionable illusion belongs also the spiritualistic movement of Indian _Theosophism_ or _Occultism_. The American Col. Olcott of New York had already moved for twenty-two years in spiritualist circles when in 1874 he met with Madame Blavatsky, widow of a Russian general who had been governor of Erivan in Armenia. She professed to have been from her eighth year in communication with spirits, then to have had secret intercourse with the Mahatmas, _i.e._ spirits of old Indian penitents, during a seven years' residence on the Himalayas. She now promised to introduce the colonel to them. Olcott and Blavatsky founded at New York in 1875 a society for research in the department of the mystic sciences, travelled in 1878 to Further India and Ceylon, and settled finally in Madras, whence by word and writing they proclaimed through the whole land theosophism or occultism as the religion of the future, which, consisting in a medley of Hinduism and Buddhism, enriched by spiritualistic revelations of Mahatmas, vouched for by spiritualistic signs and miracles and conformed to the most recent philosophical and scientific researches in America and Europe, aimed at heaping contempt upon Christianity and finally driving it from the field. As fanatical opponents of Christian missions in India they were strongly supported by the Brahman and Buddhist hierarchy, and soon obtained for the theosophical society founded by them not only numerous adherents from among the natives but also many Englishman befooled by their spiritualistic swindle. As apostle and literary pioneer of the new religion appeared an Anglo-Indian called Sinnett. In spring, 1884, Madame Blavatsky and Col. Olcott went on a propagandist tour to Europe, where, in England, France, Austria, and Hungary, they won many converts, while Col. Olcott at Elberfeld and Madame Blavatsky at Odessa founded branches of their theosophical society.-But meanwhile in India affairs a.s.sumed a threatening aspect. Blavatsky on her departure had entrusted the keys of her dwelling and her mysterious cabinet with its various panels, falling doors, etc., to Mr. and Mrs.

Coulomb, who had been hitherto her a.s.sistants in all her juggleries.

Madame Coulomb, however, quarrelled with the board of theosophists at Madras, and revenged herself by placing in the hands of the Scottish mission letters addressed by Blavatsky to herself and her husband which supplied evidence that all her spiritualistic manifestations were only common tricks. In addition she gave public exhibitions in which she demonstrated to the spectators _ad oculos_ the spiritual manifestations of the Mahatmas, and subsequently published an "Account of My Acquaintances.h.i.+p with Madame Blavatsky, 1872-1884," with discoveries of her earlier rogueries. Meanwhile the swindler had herself in December, 1884, returned to Madras in company with several believers gathered up in England, among others a young English clergyman, Leadbeater, who some days previously in Ceylon had formally adopted Buddhism. The theosophists now demanded that the reputed cheat and deceiver should be brought before a civil court. The president, however, declared that the investigations and judgment of a profane court of law could not be accepted to the mysteries of occultism, but promised a careful examination by a commission appointed by himself, and Blavatsky thought it advisable "for the restoration of her health in a cooler climate" to make off from the scene of conflict.(131)

-- 212. Antichristian Socialism and Communism.

While the antichristian spirit of the age breaks out in various theoretical forms in our literature, there also abound social and communistic movements of a practical kind. Socialism and communism both aim at a thorough-going reform of the rights of property and possession in strict proportion to the labour spent thereon. They are, however, distinguished in this, that while communism declares war against all private property and demands absolute community of goods, socialism, at least in its older and n.o.bler forms, proceeding from the idea of precise correspondence between capital and labour, seeks to have expression given to this in fact. From the older socialism, which endeavoured to reach its end in a peaceful way within the existing lines of civil order, a later social democracy is to be distinguished by its decidedly politico-revolutionary character and tendency to attach itself more to communism. This modern socialism thinks to open the way to the realization of its hare-brained ideas by the confusion and overthrow of existing law and order.

1. _The Beginnings of Modern Communism._-As early as 1796 Babeuf published in Paris a communistic manifesto which maintained the thesis that natural law gives all men an equal right to the enjoyment of all goods. His ideas were subsequently systematized and developed by Fourier, Proudhon, Cabet, and Louis Blanc in France, and by Weibling and Stirner in Germany. In a treatise of 1840 Proudhon answered the question, _Qu'est-ce que la propriete?_ in words which afterwards became proverbial, and formed the motto of communism: _La propriete c'est le vol._ But the mere negation of property affords no permanent standing ground. All altars must be thrown down; all religion rooted out as the plague of humanity; the family and marriage, as the fountain of all selfishness, must be abolished; all existing governments must be overthrown; all Europe must be turned into one great social democracy. A secret communistic propaganda spread over all western Europe, had its head centres in Belgium and Switzerland, crossed the Alps and the Pyrenees, as well as the Channel, and found a congenial soil even in Russia.

2. _St. Simonism._-The Count St. Simon of Paris, reduced to poverty by speculation, proposed by means of a thorough organization of industry to found a new and happy state of things in which there would be pure enjoyment without poverty and care. An attempted suicide, which led however to his death in 1825, made him in the eyes of his disciples a saviour of the world. The July revolution of 1830 gave to the new universal religion, which reinstated the flesh in its long lost rights and sought to a.s.sign to each individual the place in the commonwealth for which he was fitted, some advantage. "Father" Enfantin, whom his followers honoured as the highest revelation of deity, contended with pompous phrases and in fantastic style for the emanc.i.p.ation of woman and against the unnatural inst.i.tution of marriage. But St. Simonism soon excited public ridicule, was p.r.o.nounced immoral by the courts of justice, and the remnants of its votaries fled from the scorn of the people and the vengeance of the law to Egypt, where they soon disappeared.

3. _Owenists and Icarians._-The Scotch mill-owner _Rob. Owen_ went in 1829 to America, in order there, unhindered by religious prejudices, clerical opposition, and police interference, to work out on a large scale his socialistic schemes for improving the world, which in a small way he believed he had proved already among his Scotch mill-operatives. He bought for this purpose from the Wurttemberger Rapp the colony of Harmony (-- 211, 6); but wanting the necessary capital for the socialistic commonwealth there established, and failing to realize his expectations, discontent, disorder, and opposition got the upper hand, and in 1826 Owen was obliged to abandon all his property. He now returned to England, and addressed himself in treatises, tracts, and lectures to the working cla.s.ses of the whole land, in order to win them over to his ideas. A vast brotherhood for mutual benefit and for the enjoyment of their joint earnings was to put an end to earth's misery, which the positive religions had not lessened but only increased. In 1836, in the great industrial cities socialist unions with nearly half a million members were formed, with their head centre and annual congress at Birmingham. The practical schemes of Owen, however, had no success in England, and his societies no permanency. He died in 1858.-Still more disastrous was the fate of the Icarian Colony, founded in Texas in 1848 by the Frenchman _Stephen Cabet_, author of "_Voyage en Icarie, Roman philos. et social_," 1840, as an attempt to realize his communistic-philanthropic ideas on the other side of the Atlantic. The colonists soon found their sanguine hopes bitterly disappointed, and hurled against their leader reproaches and threats. Some ex-Icarians accused him in 1849 before the Paris police-court as a swindler, and he was condemned to two years' imprisonment and five years' loss of civil privileges. Cabet now hastened to France, and on appeal obtained reversion of his sentence in 1851. Returning to America, he founded a new Icarian colony at Nauvoo in Illinois. But there, too, everything went wrong, and a revolt of the colonists obliged him to flee. He died in 1856.(132)

4. _The International Working-Men's a.s.sociation._-Local and national working-men's unions with a socialistic organization had for a long time existed in England, France, and Germany. The idea of a union embracing the whole world was first broached at the great London Exhibition in 1862, and at a conference in London on September 28th, 1864, at which all industrial countries of Europe were represented, it a.s.sumed a practical shape by the founding of a universal international working-men's a.s.sociation. Its const.i.tution was strictly centralistic. A directing committee in London, Carl Marx of Treves, formerly _Privatdocent_ of philosophy at Bonn, standing at its head as dictator, represented the supreme legislative and governing authority, while alongside of it a general standing council held the administrative and executive power. The latter was divided into eight sections, English, American, French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish, and annual international congresses at Geneva, Lausanne, Brussels, Basel, and the Hague gave opportunity for general consultation on matters of common interest. Reception as members was granted by the giving of a diploma after six months' trial, and involved unconditional obedience to the statutes and ordinances of the central authorities and the payment of an annual fee. The number of members, not, however, exclusively drawn from the working cla.s.ses, is said to have reached two and a half millions. The society adopted the current socialistic and communistic ideas and tendencies. The religious principle of the a.s.sociation was therefore: atheism and materialism; the political: absolute democracy; the social: equal rights of labour and profit, with abolition of private property, hereditary rights, marriage, and family; and as means for realizing this programme, unaccomplishable by peaceable methods, revolution and rebellion, fire and sword, poison, petroleum and dynamite. Such means have been used already in various ways by the international throughout the Romance countries; but specially in the brief Reign of Terror of the Paris Commune, March and April, 1871, in the relatively no less violent attempted revolt at Alcoy in Southern Spain in July, 1873. But meanwhile differences appeared within the society, which were formulated at the Hague Congress in 1872, and led to splits, which greatly lessened its unity, influence, and power to do mischief, so that this congress may perhaps be regarded as the first beginning of its end.(133)

5. _German Social Democracy._-_Ferd. La.s.salle_, son of a rich Jewish merchant of Breslau, after a full course of study in philosophy and law, began in 1848 to take a lively part in the advanced movements of the age, and when he found among the liberal citizens no favour for his socialistic ideas turned exclusively to the working cla.s.ses. In answer to the question as to what was to be done, by the central committee of a working-men's congress at Leipzig, he wrought out in 1863 with great subtlety in an open letter the fundamental idea of his universal redemption. All plans of self-help to relieve the distress of working men hitherto proposed (specially that of Schulze-Delitzsch) break down over the "iron economic law of wages," in consequence of which under the dominion of capital and the large employers of labour wages are always with fatalistic necessity reduced to the point indispensable for supplying a working man's family with the absolute necessaries of life. The working cla.s.ses, however, have the right according to the law of nature to a full equivalent for their labour, but in order to reach this they must be their own undertakers, and where self-help is only a vain illusion, state help must afford the means.

By insisting on the right to universal suffrage the working cla.s.ses have obtained a decided majority in the legislative a.s.semblies, and there secured a government of the future in accordance with their needs. On these principles the Universal German Society of Working Men was const.i.tuted, with La.s.salle as its president, which position he held till his death in a duel in 1864. Long internal disputes and personal recriminations led to a split at the Eisenach Congress in 1869. The malcontents founded an independent "Social Democratic Working-Men's Union," under the leaders.h.i.+p of Bebel and Liebknecht, which, particularly successful in Saxony, Brunswick, and South Germany, represents itself as the German branch of the "International Working-Men's a.s.sociation." It adhered indeed generally to La.s.salle's programme, but objected to the extravagant adulation claimed for La.s.salle by their opponents, the proper disciples of La.s.salle, who had Hasenclaver as their leader and Berlin as their headquarters, subst.i.tuted a federal for a centralistic organization, and instead of a great centralised government in the future desired rather a federal republic embracing all Europe. But both declared equally in favour of revolution; they vied with one another in bitter hatred of everything bearing the name of religion; and wrought out with equal enthusiasm their communistic schemes for the future. At the Gotha Congress of 1875 a reconciliation of parties was effected. The social-democratic agitation thus received a new impulse and a.s.sumed threatening proportions.

Yet it required such extraordinary occurrences as the twice attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of the aged emperor, by Hodel on May 11th, and n.o.biling on June 2nd, 1878, to rouse the government to legislative action. On the basis of a law pa.s.sed in October, 1878, for two and a half years (but in May, 1880, continued for other three and a half years, and in May, 1884, and again in April, 1886, on each occasion extended to other two years), 200 socialist societies throughout the German empire were suppressed, sixty-four revolutionary journals, circulated in hundreds of thousands and with millions of readers, and about 800 other seditious writings, were forbidden. But that the social-democratic organization and agitation was not thereby destroyed is proved by the fact that in August, 1880, in an uninhabited Swiss castle lent for the purpose, in Canton Zurich, a congress was held, attended by fifty-six German socialists, with greetings by letter from sympathisers in all European countries, which among other things pa.s.sed the resolution unanimously, no longer as had been agreed upon at Gotha, to seek their ends by lawful methods, as by the law of the socialists impossible, but by the way of revolution.-On the other hand, the German Imperial Chancellor Prince Bismarck in the Reichstag, 1884, fully admitted the "right of the worker to work," as well as the duty of the state to ameliorate the condition of working men as far as possible, and in three propositions: "Work for the healthy workman, hospital attendance to the sick, and maintenance to the invalided," granted all that is asked for by a healthy social policy.

6. _Russian Nihilism._-In Russia, too, notwithstanding a strictly exercised censors.h.i.+p, the philosophico-scientific gospel of materialism and atheism found entrance through the writings of Moleschott, Feuerbach, Buchner, Darwin, etc. (-- 174, 3), especially among the students. In 1860, Nihilism, springing from this seed, first a.s.sumed the character of a philosophical and literary movement. It sought the overthrow of all religious inst.i.tutions. Then came the women's question, claiming emanc.i.p.ation for the wife. The example of the Paris Commune of 1871 contributed largely to the development of Nihilistic idealism, its political revolutionary socialism. The Nihilist propaganda, like an epidemic, now seized upon the academic youth, male and female, was spread in aristocratic families by tutors and governesses, won secret disciples among civil servants as well as officers of the army and navy, and was enthusiastically supported by ladies in the most cultured and exalted ranks. In order to spread its views among the people, young men and women disguised in peasant's dress went out among the peasants and artisans, lived and wrought like them, and preached their gospel to them in their hours of rest. But their efforts failed through the antipathy and apathy of the lower orders, and the energetic interference of the government by imprisonment and banishment thinned the ranks of the propagandists. But all the more closely did those left bind themselves together under their central leaders as the "Society for Country and Freedom," and strove with redoubled eagerness to spread revolutionary principles by secretly printing their proclamations and other incendiary productions, and scattering them in the streets and houses. On January 24th, 1878, the female Nihilist _Vera Sa.s.sulitsch_ from personal revenge dangerously wounded with a revolver General Trepoff, the dreaded head of the St.

Petersburg police. Although she openly avowed the deed before the court and gloried in it, she was amid the acclamations of the public acquitted.

This was the hour when Nihilism exercised its fellest terrorism. The fair, peaceful phrase, "To work, fight, suffer, and die for the people," was silenced; it was now, sword and fire, dagger and revolver, dynamite and mines for all oppressors of the people, but above all for the agents of the police, for their spies, for all informers and apostates. An "executive committee," unknown to most of the conspirators themselves, issued the death sentence; the lot determined the executioner, who himself suffered death if he failed to accomplish it. What was now aimed at was the a.s.sa.s.sination of higher state officials; then the sacred person of the emperor. Three bold attempts at a.s.sa.s.sination miscarried; the revolver shot of Solowjews on April 14th, 1879; the mine on the railway near Moscow that exploded too late on November 30th, 1879; the horrible attempt to blow up the Winter Palace with the emperor and his family on February 17th, 1880; but the fourth, a dynamite bomb thrown between the feet of the emperor on March 13th, 1881, destroyed the life of this n.o.ble and humane monarch, who in 1861-1863 had freed his people from the yoke of serfdom.

As for years nothing more had been heard of Nihilist attempts, it was hoped that the government had succeeded in putting down this diabolical rebellion, but in 1887 the news spread that an equally horrible attempt had been planned for the sixth anniversary of the a.s.sa.s.sination of Alexander II., but fortunately timely precautions were taken against it.