ART. VII. THE TENDENCY TO INDIVIDUALISM IN THE GERMAN CHURCHES IN AMERICA.

BY REV. I. E. GRAEFF.

THE individual has intelligence and will, and must therefore have some degree of freedom in the exercise of his personal powers. Without such freedom there can be no personal responsibility, and, accordingly, no real manhood. Neither divine nor human law may ignore this fact, and turn man into a mere machine. It is the unalterable norm of moral order that individuality comes to its proper self-consciousness and personal dignity, in the way of unconstrained rational activity, a law which the new creation in Christ through the gospel recognizes, and towards the solution of which it is constantly tending. Indeed, there is nothing so grand and cheering in all history besides, as this process of evangelic individuation as it lies before us in the colossal movements of the Christian era.

Christianity has proven to be the most effectual destroyer of castes the world ever saw. Its ruling apostolic genius is in no sympathy with artificial barriers of any kind, standing in the way of the emancipation and unification of all classes and conditions of men. It places all on the same level before God in the economy of grace, and unites them into a brotherhood in which all distinctions prejudicial to manhood must give way. St. Paul says that in this communion there can be neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond nor free, thus indicating the equality of all in the moral scheme of personality, giving to the world a new key to the laws of social and political economy, and opening the gates wide for the ushering in of an era of universal redemption, freedom and peace. We need not wonder that this trumpet-blast of apostolic good news met with a warm response from the popular heart all along the highway of Christian civilization, and that it gave rise to frequent antag.

onisms between the organized powers of society on the one hand, and the aspirations of individualism on the other. These struggles, or conflicts, were simply the conditions that lay directly in the life of the process to which they belonged, and hence in the very nature of things it could not be otherwise. Society, as the gospel found it, had no proper conception of the rights and dignity of the individual, and neither had the individual a true sense of his own responsibility and destiny, and of course the lofty ideal of a full-grown Christian community could only be gradually realized. But that this high standard has been approached by degrees, and that many of the beneficent results of the movement are now firmly imbedded in the laws and manners of modern society, is a fact too well known to require argument. The process has reached its present status in such a way as to leave the race in a much better state generally than it was when it began. The benefit is reaped by both society, in its universal capacity, and the indvidual personally taken. This is the secret that lies at the bottom of the momentum of our civilization, which, in the course of its progress, cannot be long resisted by any of the decaying systems of Pagan life.

Now it is not to be expected that so radical and far-reaching a revolution as this, involving such momentous issues, lookng towards changes so intimately interwoven with the manifold interests of men and orders of society, and having such worldhistorical depth and significance, could be passed through without touching the tenderest chords of personal aspirations, thus giving rise to an order of intense individualism in the bosom of Christian nations. And if we consider that this vitalizing agency is present in history for ages, and that it is gathering strength as it is growing and spreading in the world, we may easily understand why there should be so broad and deep a chasm between the civilization, in the bosom of which Herod slew the young children of Bethlehem of Judea, without answering for his cruelty, and that of our own day and generation, in the codes and judicial proceedings of which so much care is taken that even the worst criminals receive the benefit

of an impartial trial. This wide difference between the customs of antiquity and our modern humane modes of law and custom lies in the source from which it sprang, and in the life that gives it character and aim. Modern individualism, or individuation, would hardly differ from that of the ancients in principle, habit and spirit, had it not received its inspiritation in the schools of a more humane humanity than that of the classics, and had it not been ruled in all the stages of its growth by a more magnanimous tribunal than that of the forum. The presence of the kingdom of Christ in the world as the central power of history has brought about these wonderful miracles of change in the moral and social order of the nations, and therefore to understand the individualism of our civilization in its distinction. from the economy of all other orders of life, ancient or modern, requires a philosophical sense of a positively Christian kinda personality apprehended and borne along by the objective historic current, in the order of which the whole grand mystery of our civilization was begotten and brought forth.

But we must look now for some specimens by which the individualistic peculiarities of our times may be set forth, and the normal and beneficial, or abnormal and injurious, workings of the same may be demonstrated.

Individualism is not just the same among all people, even under the full power of the same order of life. Anglo-American individuality differs widely from that common to the Teutonic stock, although both stand in the bosom of the same nationality, and have a common destiny. Constitutionally they

have much alike, belonging both to the Anglo-Saxon race, yet there are evidently very broad and radical differences between them. Americans of Anglican extraction are moving in the full tide of popular freedom and activity. In theory they often hold views which, followed out logically, would strike at the root of all authority standing over and above the individual, and those not familiar with their mode of reasoning by practical experience, would be liable to regard them as a body of fanatical destructives little better than the Jacobins and Red Republicans of French revolutionary memory. No greater mis

take could, however, be made, generally speaking, in forming a judgment of the character and opinions of any people. Along with their extreme love of personal freedom, they possess a remarkable talent for organizing and co-operating in the enforcement of great and liberal measures, and a rigid practical conservatism by which they generally manage to maintain the supremacy of the laws and the stability of popular traditions, together with an apparently reckless disregard for fixed, routine, or stiff orthodox mannerism. Any one with his eyes but half open, may see this every day. By this ready adaptation to circumstances they atone for many of the theoretical heresies which characterize their modes of thinking. In Church government and theology, for instance, their views are often of the most bald spiritualistic and unhistorical kind; but when they come to take hold of the practical concerns of religion and the Church, they generally succeed to a wonderful degree in securing the co-operation of the masses, setting in motion thus an enginery of complicated ecclesiastical and beneficent propagandism not less effective, in its disciplinary movements, than many high-toned churchly organizations, or orders, of the same kind. Into these measures they frequently enter with an alacrity that cannot but be highly refreshing to all who have a taste for genuine business energy and zeal, and that especially in the cause of benevolent and religious enterprise It is this that has given them the power to found and endow so many institutions of learning, to raise up such magnificent monuments of public beneficence on a most munificent scale, and to carry forward schemes of missionary enterprise broad and comprehensive in character and aim, all by the powerful logic of generous co-operation. No blind or stupid fear of the possible. abuse of organized effort, keeps them from banding together for the accomplishment of great ends. They are generally shrewd and intelligent enough to see that freedom of opinion is committing a grand folly when it refuses to join broad but liberal combinations, regardless of the necessary check thus laid on the selfish movings of individual caprice:

It is true, much of this Anglo-American munificence and

success comes in large contributions, from the hands of wealthy individuals. Many of their literary endowments and benevolent institutions have been founded in this way, and yet it is well known that, in these cases of individual liberality, the masses are often asked to join; and they have frequently done so in a measure corresponding with the princely designs of the original movers. This is what has given Anglo-American life such aggressive force and prominence in all the public affairs of this nation. As matters now stand they have the advantage over all other nationalities here represented, but the time was when this was not so much the case, when other foreign elements were more on an equality with that of English origin and habits. But we have now a national character distinctly formed and drawn, and there is no longer any question as to what language shall be the vernacular of this great Republic. These things are strongly in favor of the English churches, and powerfully against those of other tongues. It has been so in the past, but it is becoming still more so every day; for the English language is rapidly sweeping every thing in its course, and no foreign tongue can maintain itself long except by immigration. In view of this fact it is but wisdom and good sense to submit cheerfully to the demands of the situation by cultivating and adopting the language and manners of the country, or make up one's mind to be absorbed peicemeal by the rapidly growing Anglo-American life around us.

And just here we may turn an eye to some of the peculiarities of Teutonic individualism, not only that we may look back to the past and know what has happened there, but rather that we may learn from the past how we may act wisely in the future.

That we who have sprung from the great Teutonic stock, whether we speak the language of Germania or not, are not as practical as our English neighbors, and that therefore we have not the same capacity for self-government, we take to be a selfevident fact that needs not to be repeated. This undoubtedly is our misfortune under the circumstances, although we may stoutly maintain that it does not amount to a reproach, since it