killeth. Here was the principle which worked all mischief. Let man keep himself from everything not avowedly and directly religious. The application of this principle separated man more and more from real life, and, in the place of that very spirit to be brought out and cherished, there was left to these schools of the pietists a vicious form. The outward posture became the essential thing. A spiritual police system was introduced, all schools and families were constantly searched in quest of the chief means of instruction—the Bible and the catechism. It came to be believed that the young people, if left to themselves, would go to destruction. Accordingly, the pupils were never left alone, not even for a moment; exercises for worship were multiplied, praying and preaching never ceased. Here was an educational system originated to develop true piety, and actually producing lying hypocrisy, and contemptible Phariseeism. Here was an educational system designed in the interests of spirituality, and at the same time working a twofold evil—crushing out in weaker natures all fresh, individual life-power; repressing in stronger natures those passions which fed upon themselves for the years of school-life only to break forth at last with destructive fury.
We may realize the fearful state to which pietism came by noting the condition of the orphan-schools and poor-schools. These houses were originally the result of Christian sympathy; they became "instruments for a kind of soul-cure." The prayers of the orphans were solicited and published on the doors of the buildings. "Four groschen to pray for a man with bad eyes." "One groschen to be freed from the toothache." "Eight groschen, pray God, dear orphans, on account of my sinful thoughts," "Four groschen that God may send me belief on the Son of God." Spener did not recognize the truth he proclaimed—he was never entirely free from the formalism he opposed. He felt the deadness of the Church, and at the same time believed that salvation was necessarily bound up with certain forms of dogmatical teaching. He desired a true and living piety, but did not believe this was anywise possible except for those who accepted, without question, the visible, literal form of faith. Piety, thus confined, could not develop otherwise than as it did with Spener and his associates. This striking movement in the history of education and its disastrous outcome might well lead the thoughtful mind to inquire whether religion is a matter that can be taught. It may lie in the very nature of this subject that it can not be communicated from the professorial chair, however wonderfully endowed. Upon the supposition (an hypothesis far beyond the territory of hope) that all educators could agree as to what make up the fundamentals of religion, it might be found that the best, the only, method of imparting them would be by example, by a deportment sincerely in harmony with them.[1]
- ↑ See, in this connection, that delightful little work, "An Attic Philosopher," by Émile Souvestre.
