THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION.
By E. A. Sutherland
“FAITH is the polar star that guides the Christian’s way,” and when that is left out of an education the life and energy are gone and but an empty shell remains. D’Aubigne, speaking of the days of papal supremacy, expresses it by saying that “men forsook the precious perfume of faith and bowed down before the empty vessel that contained it.” At the time the first faint rays of a coming reformation cast their beams athwart the darkness, the exercise of faith in religious matters was dead; as for faith in education, or as a basis for mental development, there was none. Man had been for centuries under the grasp of an invincible power. One earthly government after another had striven in vain for its overthrow, only to be itself dashed to pieces as the waves at the foot of a cliff. Nothing but the power of the Eternal could accomplish this end, yet when begun by Him, what mighty things could be accomplished with what seems but the slightest effort! We wonder when we see the slender blade of wheat forcing aside the clod of dirt which, if placed there by mortal hands, would crush its life. This is the force directed by the Word of God. Similar forces were at work in the sixteenth century, and indeed in the years preceding, which paved the way for that great upheaval. Great moves begin not suddenly. As the seed falls into the crevice of the cliff, takes root, and long after splits the rock asunder, so for years there had been forces at work, destined from the very beginning to shake the whole structure of the Papacy. As the ability of that power to hold in check human progress lay largely,—one might say almost wholly,—in the system of education, or in that system which, so far from being one of education, kept the people in hopeless ignorance, it is but reasonable to look for a countermove to begin with a class of people whose minds were broadening, and in those institutions where learning was offered. We have seen that schools were started as a result of the progress made by the Mohammedans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and after finding that these institutions had come to stay, the papal power did the next thing at hand; she placed her seal upon the work, and so modified the effort as to realize the least harm possible from the growing idea of an increase of knowledge. But even this could not crush the move. It was God-given, and the plant was bound to grow, producing seed which in turn also grew and multiplied. Disaffection had been felt in the German States for some time. Frederick of Saxony, in the year 1502, founded the school at Wittenberg. It seems strange that he should declare in its charter that he and his people should look to this school as to an oracle. How well it would meet this object they could but faintly guess. Here was cradled the sixteenth century Reformation. Luther, the monk, was called to occupy the chair of physics and logic. But he had already heard the voice which said, “The just shall live by faith,” and his soul hungered and thirsted for the bread of life. Not long after, he was granted the degree of bachelor of divinity, and then began his career as a teacher of the Scriptures. The new life was receiving recognition. The fountain head of knowledge had been approached, and the stream of living water flowed out to mankind. Thousands flocked to hear him. The secret of success is revealed in the words of the historian: “Luther’s lectures, thus prepared, had little similarity with what had been heard till then. It was not an eloquent rhetorician or a pedantic schoolman that spoke; but a Christian, who had felt the power of the revealed truths, who drew them forth from the Bible, poured them out from the treasures of his heart, and presented them all full of life to his astonished hearers.” “This entirely new method of expounding truth made a great noise; the news of it spread far and wide, and attracted to the newly-established university a crowd of youthful foreign students.” Of the student life in many other universities of the same period, Painter declares: “The state of morals . . . was very low. Idleness, drunkenness, disorder and licentiousness prevailed in an unparalleled degree. The practise of hazing was universal.” The same author quotes from Duke Albrecht of Saxony, who says: “Customs before unheard of, inexcusable, unreasonable, and wholly barbarian, have come into existence. When any person, either of high or low rank, goes to any of our universities for the sake of pursuing his studies, he is called by insulting names; . . . and insulted, abused, derided, and hooted at, until, against his will, and to the great injury and damage to himself and his parents, he has prepared, given, and paid for a stately and expensive entertainment.” Then he describes the disgraceful actions of these entertainments, which distinctly remind one of the fraternity swells of more modern times. Such actions are the natural outgrowth of the studies pursued. The Latin, the logic, the philosophy—what did it bring forth? Bacon quietly describes it thus: “The wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.” Who can wonder that when the great Reformer cleared Wittenberg of its old text-books, rooted out its long courses of classics, and placed the Bible in its proper setting, students flocked there in hundreds, and that the walls of that university saw such earnest, consecrated work as Luther describes? It became the training-ground for the Christian workers of Europe. The secret of success in all educational effort, could we but recognize it, lies hidden in these methods. The same methods to-day would produce the same results. Men clamor and toil, stretch forth the hands and seek, but it is in vain, for they fail to accept that beginning of wisdom which is the fear of God, and the acceptance of which means the laying aside of all human inventions and the exercise of simple faith. Those now inclined to feel that to make the Bible the basis of all education would cheapen and degrade, forget that it was a translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue that first awoke the English nation; that laid the foundation of all English literature; in fact, that made it possible to have a Milton or a Shakespeare, a Bunyan or a Bacon. Luther’s German translation of the Scriptures did as much for his native country. Protestantism, which had its birth in his time, and in his country, fostered public education. This was the era for the beginning of universal education, but it is well to remember that it began and was carried forward by arousing faith in the Word of God. Luther’s anxiety to turn from the pagan philosophy which then occupied a large place in the courses of the universities and required eight or nine years of a student’s life, was but an indication of the direction in which true religious reformation would turn the minds of educators. The new plan was correct, and would have developed a nation with prospects as bright as the future appeared to the Jewish nation at the time of Solomon’s gift of wisdom; but man has ever run to extremes. It is easy to foresee the result, should the pervading spirit of the reformer for a time be lost sight of. As Zwingli in Switzerland lost sight of the true principles of Protestantism by attempting in his zeal to carry them forward with the weapons of the State, and as a result plunged his country into a most terrible politico-religious war, in like manner the system of education inaugurated by Protestantism in the days of its purity was side-tracked by a compromise with paganism. The Papacy, if it could not overthrow the Reformation, could meet it with a counter-reformation. This it did in educational lines, as well as in strictly religious ideas, and the order of Jesuits sprang into existence. Was there complaint that worldly institutions fostered lawlessness, debauchery and kindred evils? It was met on the part of the Jesuits by the strictest vows of chastity, order and obedience. Again, Bacon says on this subject: “Take example of the schools of the Jesuits, for better do not exist. When I look at the diligence and activity of the Jesuits, both in imparting knowledge and molding the heart, I bethink me of the exclamation, ‘Since thou art so noble, I would thou wert on our side!’” The education of all Catholic countries passed into their hands, and their schools were filled with children of all classes; “for,” says one writer, “they taught not only gratuitously, but well.” Such a system, subtile in the extreme, was far more difficult to meet than open opposition, and it was in such a way that the pure seed sown in Germany was found to be so much mixed with tares when the harvest appeared. That system which placed God and his Word in the lead drifted into an abstract theological system. As there is a wide distinction between Christianity and theology, so in the days which followed close upon the life of Luther and Melancthon came those years of theological discussion and study of subtle doctrinal points which barred out all life and truth. The study of nature and the natural sciences had awakened an interest, but these things were either replaced or largely overshadowed by the classical courses in the colleges which made the study of Greek and Latin, both dead languages, the final goal for students. Says Painter: “Latin was the Moloch to which countless minds fell an offering in return for the blessing granted to a few. A dead knowledge of words took the place of a living knowledge of things. Latin school-books supplanted the book of nature, the book of life, the book of mankind.” You who read, does this not well describe the work done in our high schools and colleges of to-day? Have you not followed this well-worn path to knowledge, and altho frank enough to acknowledge that much you learned5was absolutely useless when you took up life's duties seriously, are you not pushing your son and daughter through the same grind?