The overseas West in religious and moral terms

Contents First reading I. The importance and interest of studying religious and moral life in America in view of the church-religious state experienced by our society II. Public sensitivity to the interests of religious and moral life Second reading III. The religious essence of Protestantism and its ecclesiastical and practical inconsistency. The Realm of Sects and Divisions IV. The desire of the American people for church-religious unification and the significance of this Fact. Conclusion Public lectures given during Lent 1888. in the “Society for the Propagation of Religious and Moral Education in the Spirit of the Orthodox Church” in favor of insufficient students. Netherburg Theological Academy and students of St. Petersburg. theological seminary. I. The importance and interest of studying religious and moral life in America in view of the church-religious state experienced by our society Church and State in America. Church and school. Church and society. Church and print. The Social Significance of the Sermon. Last year, before a public interested in religious issues, we had the honor of expressing several thoughts regarding the religious and moral state of the heterodox West at the present time, and there, among other things, we tried to present a fundamental characteristic of the religious principles of Orthodoxy in contrast to the systems of Western Christianity 1 . This question has not lost its lively interest and now, and, perhaps, has even increased to the extent to which, in general, interest in the sublime problems of religious and moral life seems to be growing in our society. We live in very significant times. The wave of unbelief and materialism that swept through the spiritual life of Europe in half of our century is apparently weakening. Crude materialism, which, having found a temporary ally in the natural sciences, raised its merciless hand to everything ideal and sacred and wanted to sweep away, so to speak, all religious ideas in the field of the human spirit, is noticeably losing its charm for all more or less thinking people. This worldview, which proudly stood out with the promise of giving enlightened humanity a new “god of science” in place of the old “God of religions,” as one might expect, suffered a complete fiasco. It could not satisfy the deepest demands of the human spirit, and it turns away from it. Materialism wanted to explain all the mysteries of existence with scientific tactile principles; but these principles are too simple to embrace all the mysteries, which occupy the human mind. After the most careful and detailed explanation of spiritual phenomena, the human spirit, as it were, instinctively feels their incompleteness and understatement, and these very explanations serve only as one step to that inaccessible church where the mystery of being lives in all its mysterious inaccessibility. And so we see how the mind of modern humanity, no longer satisfied with materialism, is clearly inclined to the opposite worldview, which gives more satisfaction to the growing thirst for mystery. After the recent general denial of everything mysterious and supernatural, it even becomes incredible to what extent a thirst for the mysterious and supernatural is now noticeable everywhere. Modern cultured people listen with a kind of painful sensitivity to strange voices in gloomy spiritualistic seances, reverently listen to the mysterious tappings and movements of a soulless table, are carried away by the mysterious trick of guessing other people's thoughts, and even people of positive science are not averse to believing in the possibility of an unknown fourth dimension. It is clear that in such a mood, the religious worldview again acquires meaning and interest, which in the end provides better satisfaction and calmness to a thought tired of deserted wandering. And indeed, we see undoubted signs of a revival of religious interest not only among the people, but also in educated society. This fact could only please us; but unfortunately, in this very turn there is an element that prevents its full fruitfulness for religious and moral life. Here we see the return, so to speak, of the lost mind to religion; but the previous wandering through the wilds of rationalism and complete unbelief had such a detrimental effect on the spiritual life of modern cultured man that now, even returning to religion, he does not have enough moral self-control to humbly submit to the teachings of the church, and introduces into the field of religious worldview that corrupting rationalism with which his spiritual life is infected. This, undoubtedly, is the reason for the sad phenomenon that our famous writer, who considers his return from spiritual and practical nihilism to a religious and moral worldview to be the greatest happiness of his life, in his religious and theological writings essentially remains a slave to his mind, corrupted by previous skepticism. But the same thing is noticeable in our educated society in general. After a shameless enthusiasm for negative doctrines, now returning to the religious worldview, it alone does not want to humbly bow before the teachings of the Orthodox Church, but seeks satisfaction of its religious thirst where religion is taught in the form of spicy and sensational speculation. It is no secret to anyone that in two points of our capital there is a regular preaching of extreme sectarian ideas, and this preaching attracts quite a few people from that society, which, feeling a religious thirst, does not want to quench it from the national source - the Orthodox Church. And in general, in the mood of our educated society, a fermentation is noticeable, which has not yet been sufficiently determined, but in which, however, one cannot help but see a tendency towards what can be called religious individualization, that is, towards the organization of religious life according to personal considerations of reason. This is obviously a tendency of sectarianism, and counteracting it is the sacred duty of everyone who values ​​the interests of the church and a healthy spiritual and moral life. By the way, we were guided by these considerations when we chose the question of the religious and moral state of the overseas West as the subject of our Lenten readings. America is a classic country of sectarianism, and the study of its religious and moral life can therefore be of extremely important and deep interest, precisely in the sense of understanding what results the dominance of personal reason in spiritual and religious life can lead to, in the absence of strong church principles. We had the opportunity to become acquainted with the religious and moral life of the North American republic through direct observation, the results of which we have already shared with the reading public in print, both in our correspondence and in separate publications. But this area is so wide that even after all this it is possible to report several such data, which, due to their novelty, are not without some interest for understanding this highly interesting and instructive life, especially since very recently phenomena have occurred on the soil of America that during our stay there could only serve as the subject of uncertain speculation. In order to give a clearer and more definite idea of ​​the religious and moral life in North America, we will expand our subject and consider it from two sides, both of which are of particular interest, namely from the side of the general religious and moral state of the American people, and from the side of those, in particular, phenomena that constitute the fruit of the principles underlying it. With this, both the light and dark sides of this life will appear, and at the same time its instructive side for us will become clearer and more tangible. First of all, it must be said that in religious terms the American people of the United States differ very sharply from the peoples of the old world. This is a completely young people who are seething with the fullness of their youthful spiritual life. He does not yet have that discord between the different forces of the spirit that decrepit Europe suffers - there is no contradiction between reason and faith. After the soulless skepticism of the old world, the breath of a new, fresh and healthy life is felt on the soil of the new world. The American people are developing evenly in all their strengths and departments. Cultural and social development in him goes in parallel with religious development and therefore in his being there is no that moral flabbiness that constitutes an outstanding feature in the cultural classes of the European peoples. America does not know an intelligentsia that would undermine its moral being by denying the religious principle; there is no society separated from the church corporation, and there is no literature that ignores religion as one of the important figures in cultural and social development. It is scarcely possible anywhere else to find as many educated secular persons concerned with religious matters as there are in the United States of America. And this is all the more remarkable because America, by its cultural character, is a country of positive knowledge. Despite this, science lives there in harmonious unity with religious faith, and the skeptical works of the old world find almost no sales there. It will not be surprising, therefore, that the entire life of the American people is imbued with a religious spirit, and all manifestations of state and public life bear a strong imprint of religious influence. The first proposition may seem incredible and incongruous to those who know that in America the principle of complete separation of church and state prevails. In this regard, as we know, America serves as a common place, so to speak, to which all European cultural leaders constantly refer, who consider the union of church and state to be a stale anachronism for our enlightened age. But it must be said that in this regard we have great uncertainty, arising from insufficient acquaintance with the general structure and character of life in America. There, indeed, the church and the state are separated from each other, but this legal fact does not yet determine the actual state of things. The closest inheritance of the relationship in which the church and the state stand in America can only lead to the conclusion that in reality the church and the state are inseparable, just as the soul and body are inseparable from each other in a living organism. For this message, we have already been subjected once again by our cultural leaders, who only dream of benefiting our fatherland by transferring to its soil the principles and orders of their beloved West - the name cleric. But nevertheless, we repeat this statement again because it is not based on theory, but on the study of reality. The separation of church and state in America only means that the state there, having encountered a variety of religious forms, did not identify with any of them separately, which would have violated the natural sense of justice and equality in relation to all others, but thereby did not at all separate from religion as a common religious and moral principle. This fact of American life only proves once again that the principle of separation of church and state is not a denial of religion on the part of the state, but only one of the forms of their mutual relationship. The denial of religion by the state is as impossible a fact as the denial of a known fact. The state cannot deny religion but the very essence of its purpose. Its goal is not to destroy the essential elements of social life, but to support them, to give them more favorable conditions for development than a single and scattered life can imagine. If religion constitutes an essential element of social life (which the most extreme representatives of atheism and unbelief did not dare to deny, who, despite all their hostility to existing forms of religion, still found themselves forced to invent their own religion, in the form of a religion of reason, humanity, etc.), then of course the state cannot deny this element without contradicting its own goal and purpose. And history has not yet provided an example of a non-religious state. Religion has always been and is that natural spring that constantly flows with a stream of higher and ideal principles that determine the healthy moral development of social and state life. To deny religion for the state or society would mean to fill up this spring of living water with the garbage of ordinary sensual needs, and the result of this would be the inevitable death of the highest moral life with all the consequences of decay. The importance of religion for the state is historically attested by the fact that the state has always sought an ally in religion or the church. Therefore, the principle of legal separation of church and state is only a new form of their internal union and relationship, as we see in the United States of America. This internal union clearly makes itself felt from the positive and negative sides, but since this issue was studied in some detail by us earlier, 2 we will limit ourselves here to only indicating such facts that are directly related to the current reality of American life. On the negative side in this regard, attention is drawn to the remarkable fact that the American state is by no means indifferent to the religious forms of religious life of the people and, as a result, does not allow that unlimited freedom of religious conscience, which is usually understood under the principle of separation of church and state. In its own sense, the state allows only such religious forms that their content does not contradict the general religious and moral principles that underlie the American state and constitute, so to speak, its state religion or church. Since this principle is undoubtedly a Christian principle, any deviation from it is directly punished by the state. Based on this, the American state, for example. cannot at all allow the existence on its territory of such religious sects that would consider it a duty of their conscience to make human sacrifices or perform rituals contrary to Christian morality. From this very principle logically follows the long-standing and persistent struggle that the government of the United States of North America is waging against Mormonism, which, as is known, practices polygamy, which is contrary to Christian morality. This struggle has now, thanks to the energetic efforts of the current President Cleveland, assumed a steep character, and the government does not even hesitate to deprive polygamist Mormons of some important civil rights, for example, election. to government positions, and even subjected many to imprisonment, and this is solely due to the fact that Mormons believe in such a divine revelation, in their consciousness, which contradicts the religious and moral code adopted by the state or its state religion 3. But the connection between the American state and religion is also proven by a number of facts showing the positive interaction between them. This is how the government in America takes care of maintaining religiosity among the people. A remarkable fact is known that in 1777 the American Congress authorized a special commission to purchase twenty thousand copies of the Bible in Europe for distribution among the people in view of the fact that, due to vague political circumstances, it was impossible to obtain paper and type for publishing the Bible in America. In 1780 the same Congress appointed a special commission to supervise the printing of the native edition of the Bible at Philadelphia, and the reason for this appointment was that it highly esteemed this pious and laudable undertaking as promoting the interests of religion, and recommended this edition of the Bible to the whole nation of the United States. States. The very constitution of the Union. States states: “Religion, morals and science are necessary to good government and the good of mankind.” The famous Declaration of American Independence on July 4, 1776 was preceded by a solemn religious service. Then all public and state institutions in general bear the clear imprint of the Christian religion. At the congress and legislative assemblies there are special chaplains or clergy, with whose prayer the meetings are usually opened. Chaplains are also assigned to the army, navy and prisons. The inviolability of worship is protected by strict laws. For selling alcoholic beverages in the vicinity of a church, the culprit is subject to a fine, and the black man is hit with a stick. Disturbing worship by indecent behavior or rude talk inside or even outside a church or prayer meeting is punishable by a heavy fine ($25 to $500) or imprisonment. The Bible is compulsory reading in public schools. The calling of God is considered mandatory for every oath in court and even when entering one or another administrative position, and the very occupation of the position is subject to a certain religious qualification. In Pennsylvania, for example. the constitution requires that a candidate for public office sign a confession that he believes in God and in reward in the hereafter. The Mariland State Constitution grants rights of religious conscience only to believers in God. Many states have laws that punish all blasphemy. In most states the civil laws protect the sanctity of Sunday. In 1880, the court rejected the recognition of the obligation to pay a debt that was made on a Sunday, and one traveler injured on the railway was refused money for the injury on the grounds that he should not have traveled on the Lord's Day. Finally, in order not to list too long, the state exempts from all taxes all real estate used for religious purposes, as well as all professions of a religious nature. Consequently, when the government of the state of Illinois recently imposed a patent of three hundred dollars on each spiritualist medium (of which there are too many) the spiritualists raised a cry about the oppression of the religious conscience, since the mediums in their meetings perform the same duties as pastors in Christian congregations. Such facts could be increased indefinitely if there was a need for it; but those cited are completely sufficient to confirm the idea we are proving that the separation of church and state in America is only a special form of their internal interaction. We have dwelled in detail on this aspect of the matter, because it is least known among us, as a result of which one can hear in society and read in the periodical press the most perverse and at the same time tendentious views. Thus, until recently, we had to encounter one opinion, which is obviously based on a vague idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe general relationship between church and state in America - namely, the opinion that the American school is completely secularized and religion has no place in it. This opinion is obviously based on a vague idea of ​​the state of the American school and comes only from an abstract understanding of the term “secularization.” It is absolutely true that the school in America is secularized, i.e. there is no formal teaching of the law of God, as in our educational institutions. But this secularization must be understood in exactly the same sense as the principle of separation of church and state. Religious teaching is excluded from schools solely on the same basis as the church is separated from the state, i.e., due to the actual impossibility of satisfying children of different faiths, representatives of all kinds and shades of religious difference. But with the exception of the formal teaching of religious subjects, the American school still largely retains a religious element that strongly permeates the entire school atmosphere. So in schools, every day before the opening of classes, a chapter from the Bible is read, Christian hymns are sung, which do not have a religious character; During school celebrations, speeches are made, for which most representatives of the clergy and local preachers are invited, who naturally give these speeches a religious and moral character, etc. Finally, religious education has a whole additional system in a perfectly organized Sunday school, which not only fills the gap of the public school, but, due to its close relationship with the church and the family, decisively gains a dominant influence on the general spiritual mood of children. In personal observation, we have often been simply amazed at the breadth of religious knowledge of American children, especially in the area of ​​familiarity with biblical history and the text of the Bible itself. As for the depth of religious education, this is proven by the prevailing mood even among young adults. It may seem almost incredible to us, for example. It is a fact that several young people, who have gone hunting or gathered to have a fun summer time somewhere on the shores of a poetic lake or the picturesque Hudson, in the evenings resound with the surroundings with choral singing - do not think of rollicking or even erotic songs, no - sacred hymns, deeply imprinted in their memory from their school days. And these religious hymns, which are studied in large numbers at school, are already sung by heart by five or six-year-old children, and some of them are so widespread and popular that they can be heard at every step. In view of this, to speak of the absence of religious education in American schools means to deny tangible facts. The opinion that the American school is not religious was formed under the influence of the Roman Catholic press, which is dissatisfied with this school and does not hesitate to call it even godless; but this dissatisfaction is fully explained by the fact that the religious and moral element in the public school is Protestant in nature, which for R. Catholicism is almost worse than unbelief itself, and therefore in the Catholic journalism there is a constant struggle, for example. against reading Protestant translations of the Bible in schools, and it is directly stated that it is better not to read the Bible at all in schools than to read it in the publications of the Bible Society. The religious element in America is even stronger in secondary and higher education, in the so-called colleges and universities. With regard to public education, the American state adheres to a completely different system than, for example. here or in Western European countries. It considers itself responsible only for general public education, ensuring the conscious exercise of civil rights in the country. To this end, it maintains an excellent system of public schools, the course of which is approximately equal to our secondary schools. It spends enormous amounts of money on this school and makes sure that the entire population, both male and female, goes through it. But this is where all his concern for education ends. The American state does not know higher education. All colleges and universities existing in America are completely public institutions; the state has nothing to do with them; they were founded by private individuals, supported by funds donated by individual supporters of higher education, and therefore govern themselves, regardless of the government. But in view of the fact that these institutions are completely social in nature, the religious and moral spirit that distinguishes American society could be more clearly expressed in them. And so, indeed, American colleges and universities have a stronger religious imprint than state institutions. By their very origin, they mostly grew out of simple church schools founded by various religious societies at a time when religious differences were not smoothed over by the state principle of religious tolerance. As a result, they now mostly bear this religious imprint, and each of the main universities in the country is under the exclusive authority of one or another religious community. Thus Cambridge University near Boston is run by the Unitarian community, Columbia College in New York is owned by the Episcopal Church, Yale University is run by the Presbyterial congregation, and so on. It is clear that their organization is of a corresponding nature, and they are usually headed by rectors from members of the clergy of one or another community, naturally strictly observing the interests of not only religion in general, but also their own faiths in particular. When getting acquainted with this system of American higher education, the involuntary thought more than once came to our minds, into what horror would the cultural leaders be plunged if they were told that at least part of those terrible “clerical” orders need to be introduced into our higher schools, under which higher science complacently lives in the country of the most free-thinking people in the world!.. And the extent to which this so-called “clericalism” is strong in American universities can be shown by the self-explanatory fact that once in the presbyterial college a whole storm of indignation arose against one professor because he based his teaching of philosophical sciences on the works of Spencer and Bahn - the very thinkers whose ideas were taught almost in our theological seminaries! Needless to say, to what extent all those references were absurd and false. to America, which was intended to artificially support our well-known movement towards the emancipation of women and the establishment of higher education for women. The very nature of the system of higher education in America that we have outlined excludes the possibility of such emancipatory ideas, and America in this regard is far behind us: it does not know either women’s universities or bobbed young ladies, and the extent to which the very idea of ​​the need for university education for women is poorly developed there can be seen from the fact that the so-called Annex opened at the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University, i.e. an additional class especially for women was almost closed solely because medical students resolutely refused to work with them in the anatomical museum - simply out of their inherent sense of moral delicacy. As for the actual religious and moral state of higher schools, this can be judged by the fact that it is in these schools that Revivals or specifically American movements of religious feeling most often begin. The younger generation, as the most sensitive and responsive to spiritual needs, is the first to succumb to the wave of religious enthusiasm, and from there it spreads throughout the surrounding area. In view of this relationship between the center of higher education and the church, it is not surprising that the entire mental and literary life of American society is permeated with a strong religious element. In this regard, America provides a highly instructive example. In its mental character it is predominantly a country of positive knowledge. The physical and technological sciences occupy a leading position, and it is in these areas of knowledge that American scientists mainly acquire worldwide fame. And yet, despite this, knowledge there coexists in wonderful harmony with faith, science with religion. Moreover, thanks to the dominance of the religious element in the general worldview, the most scientific theories acquire a religious character. This even happened with Darwin’s theory itself, or the so-called “theory of evolution”, as developed by Spencer. It must be said that, due to its technical harmony, it appealed to the technical American mind and enjoys considerable popularity. But the remarkable thing is that for the American mind it is far from being identified with crude materialism, as it is, for example. happened here, where with particular gloating journalism pointed out its mechanical aspects, as if excluding the possibility of everything spiritual and moral, and almost with pleasure preached the "axiom" of the origin of man from the ape. On the contrary, in America, the "theory of evolution" gave only a reason for higher religious and moral speculations; in it they found the key to a better understanding of the harmonious world order prevailing in the universe, a new step towards comprehending that, in the expression Spencer, an unknown force that leads the world to the highest perfection through miraculously expedient laws. Under the influence of this theory, even a special “religion of evolution” was formed, which sees in this theory the solution to the greatest philosophical problems about the relationship between freedom and necessity, the reconciliation of the principle of love with the rule of law in the management of the universe. This, of course, does not mean that from a theological point of view such speculations receive the correct application. On the contrary, thanks to the prevailing sectarian basis of religious life in America, they often lead to vague, sectarianism. But we are talking about the power of religious influence in the mental life of the American people, and this is fully confirmed by the given fact. The same influence appears sharply in American literature in general and periodical literature in particular. In this regard, it must first be said that the classic book that most influences American literature is the Bible. When studying the religious and moral life of the American people, nothing struck us more than the extent to which St. the book was embodied in the entire structure of mental and social life. It is not only a reference book - in our sense, but is constantly in the hands, in the thoughts and hearts of the people. Not to mention the fact that you will find it before any other book, not only in every home, but also in every hotel and restaurant, you will notice that texts from it are written on business cards, on doors, you will even see them in newspaper advertisements. The younger generation, having gone through the American secularized school, amazes with their enormous knowledge of biblical texts from memory. Biblical texts along with typical phrases from the classical poets and writers of the English race are used every now and then in literature and even in newspaper editorials. In view of this, it is clear that any phenomenon related to the Bible takes on the significance of a major social event. We will never forget the public excitement that occurred on the occasion of the appearance in 1881 of a new translation of the Bible into English. Already two weeks before its publication, both in newspapers and in society, they were talking only about this translation. And these were not empty rumors. On the very first day it went on sale in New York, 300,000 copies were sold, the next day 200,000, etc. One newspaper in the city. Chicago, two thousand miles away from New York, in order to quickly acquaint its many readers with this translation, printed the entire Gospel of Matthew by telegraph in the form of correspondence, and in the next Sunday edition printed the entire New Testament in half a million copies, which were sold out within one day at 5 cents per copy. The newspaper press spent two weeks analyzing this translation, and some special amateurs accurately counted the quantity words and letters in the new translation, in order to draw certain conclusions from a comparison of the obtained numerical data with the same data from the old translation. At the same time, we were involuntarily struck by the sad contrast of this all-captivating interest with the indifference with which the Russian translation of the Bible was greeted in our country. In view of this significance of the Bible, it will become clear why American literature bears such a strong imprint of the biblical and generally religious element. But as regards the periodical press in particular, this element is even more noticeable on it by its very, so to speak, origin and conditions of existence. Most monthly magazines in America owe their origins to boards. Every college that more or less feels scientific and literary strength in its corporation acquires a journal in which professors share their scientific and literary works with the public. This is how things stand for the most part to this day, and with the exception of The North American Review magazine, and two or three simple and illustrated magazines published by large publishing companies, American journalism is in the hands of professorial corporations. And as a result of this, the American periodical monthly press fully reflects the serious spirit of the American colleges, namely a strong religious and moral imprint. On the pages of these magazines every now and then one comes across articles on various higher theological, philosophical and religious-moral issues, which in our country can only be found on the pages of spiritual magazines little known to the secular educated public. And in general it must be said that American educated society takes a much more lively interest in higher religious and philosophical problems than our society. This need is naturally met by the periodical press, and it is remarkable that this interest is growing more and more. "Our weekly magazines, says one American writer, are exploring with increasing attention and interest the great current religious questions. Our Reviews (that is, thick magazines) devote themselves mainly to the discussion of religious problems. Now, more than at any other time in our history, our writers make religion the main subject of literature. Even novelists introduce religious questions into the composition of their stories" 4 . Alongside purely religious questions there are philosophical ones, and speculative thought enjoys amazing success on the classical basis of positive or applied knowledge. We have a concept of Americans as soulless technicians and practical materialists. And yet, for the sake of this people, as many speculative philosophy magazines are published as are hardly published in any country in Europe. And these magazines are all characterized by a strong character of sublime idealism. These are eg. the journals The Platonist in Missouri, the Journal of Speculative Philosophy in the famous philosophical town of Concord, near Boston, these Athens of the American Enlightenment; “Religious and Philosophical Magazine” in Chicago, etc. And that these magazines are not simple products of incorrigible lovers of speculation, do not represent voices in the desert, this can be judged by the eloquent fact that, for example, the religious and philosophical magazine in Chicago sells 9,000 copies. As for the prevalence of religious magazines themselves, in this regard it is enough to point out that one weekly newspaper, the Christian Advocate, sells 50,000 copies weekly, and some illustrated religious newspapers positively sell hundreds of thousands of copies. But this does not limit the influence of the religious element in America on the public consciousness. In addition to literature, an even stronger and more direct influence has church preaching, which, thanks to special circumstances, has received a high development and The best preachers, such as Beecher, the brother of the famous writer Beecher Stowe, author of the world-famous story “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” are positively the most popular people in the whole country. His sermons are telegraphed to all newspapers in the country (and even in England), and large New York newspapers publish them in painful extracts. This attention, however, is not limited to Beecher alone, it extends to other preachers, and as a result, a wonderful custom has arisen in which the Monday editions of newspapers are filled with extracts from sermons delivered on the eve. Thanks to this custom, not only does the gospel of God’s word spread more widely, but everyone can take advantage of the entire sum of religious and moral lessons taught on a given Sunday. From these reports one can always monitor the state of preaching and religious and theological thought in the country, and these same reports, in turn, serve as an important incentive for preachers to constantly stay at the height of their calling. When we first became acquainted with this wonderful custom, we more than once thought why our newspapers should not follow in this regard the example of our transatlantic friends and not publish in their Monday and post-holiday editions reports on the sermons delivered the day before, especially since due to the lack of material they usually have to be filled with all sorts of stale and unnecessary rubbish. And this whole sum of heterogeneous religious influences results in the fact that social consciousness and social activity in America bears a strong religious and moral imprint, giving the entire life of the American people a unique character of spiritual originality and energetic initiative. We now move on to characterize this side, as far as it manifests itself in the area we are considering. II. Public sensitivity to the interests of religious and moral life Caring for the religious and moral education of children. Sunday schools and Bible classes. Young Men's Christian Society. Society for the Suppression of Vice. Temperance Society. The civic virtue of the American people. The essence of American democracy and its instructive side. Social initiative naturally presupposes a certain degree of vitality and responsiveness in relation to certain principles of social life. When there is no such vitality and responsiveness, then, of course, society is indifferent to the most blatant violations of the principles and traditions that are most dear to it, but such a state assumes either extreme underdevelopment of social self-awareness, or decrepitude of spiritual life in general. The situation is completely different in America. There, the young people still largely live with the enthusiasm of youth, which is not overwhelmed even by the harsh practicality of life and they are extremely sensitive to the interests of the higher principles of their social life. And since his social life, as we have seen, is deeply imbued with a religious and moral element, nowhere does this sensitivity manifest itself with more energy than in the area of ​​religious and moral life. With any deviation from the generally accepted religious and moral principle, public opinion speaks out with remarkable force against the violation. Many examples could be given to prove this, but we will limit ourselves to two or three. It is known with what strictness Sunday is observed in America. On this day, not only all commercial, industrial, drinking and entertainment establishments are closed, but even public libraries are closed - in order to provide Sunday rest to their employees. And the extent to which public opinion is strict in this regard can be judged by the fact that when, in 1848, the installation of a new President in the White House, usually taking place on March 4, coincided with Sunday, public opinion did not allow his sanctity to be violated even by this great national celebration and, contrary to custom, the “inauguration” was postponed until the next day. In 1876, public opinion spoke out with the same force against the opening of the World's Fair in Philadelphia on Sundays, despite the fact that here public opinion had to reckon with a strong foreign element in the person of multilingual and diverse exhibitors and visitors to the exhibition. In one of the big cities, the entrepreneur of one of the city theaters decided to deviate from the general custom and began to give performances on Sundays, counting on a significant income. But he was wrong. Public opinion vigorously opposed such an innovation in that among the best local society a subscription was opened under an oath never to attend such a theater that would open its doors on Sundays. And this subscription assumed such vast proportions that the brave innovator was threatened with complete ruin if he had not publicly apologized to society and abandoned his intention. Even greater sensitivity to the interests of religious and moral life was once expressed by public opinion in New York, a city which, it should be noted, due to the constantly incoming huge wave of European immigration, has significantly lost its purely American typicality. The famous theater entrepreneur Abby, noticing significant public interest in the religious drama taking place over ten-year periods in Ober-Ammergau, decided to stage this medieval drama from the life of St. Jesus on stage in America. For this purpose, he had already made significant expenses, namely, spent up to 20,000 dollars (40,000 rubles), and yet in the end he had to abandon this enterprise, because not only the open subscription did not produce any results, but public opinion spoke out against such profanation of sacred history so strongly - both in the press, and in sermons, and in public meetings, that the entrepreneur did not dare to go against him, which he stated in print in its notice of cancellation of the assumption. With such sensitivity of public opinion to the interests of religious conscience, it is clear that American society cannot be indifferent to the religious and moral needs of the people, and it really makes enormous efforts to satisfy them, and most importantly in the young generation, on which the hopes of the state are based. This concern is especially noticeably expressed in the organization of the system of religious education. Every church certainly has its own Sunday school, which is under the supervision and guidance of a pastor, who is entrusted with full responsibility for it. It gathers either in the church itself, or in special vestibules and buildings set up for this purpose, on Sundays. Conducting a Sunday school is made easier by the fact that children do not lose their holiday through it, since there are no classes in public schools on Saturday, and children come to Sunday school with cheerful and fresh strength, where, moreover, the activity itself has many attractive aspects for them. Each parish takes an active part in its Sunday school, there is a permanent fund from which gifts and other incentives are made to children, and the very conduct of business at the school is striking in its practical simplicity and social meaning. The entire school, usually consisting of several hundred and even thousands of children, is divided into many small groups - from five to ten children, and each group or so-called "class" is headed by a special teacher or teacher. It is clear that with such a system a huge teaching staff is required, but it is willingly, one might say lovingly, replenished by the parishioners themselves, and mainly by young people of both sexes. And in this way the entire parish in its numerous representatives leads the great the matter of religious education of children, and this teaching is all the more effective because the teachers and mistresses here are often the parents and older brothers and sisters of the children. But even beyond this, teaching acquires a sincere family character in view of the fact that teachers become close to their groups, which they are engaged in for several years in a row, and their observation is not limited to the time of Sunday school meetings, but extends to the family, where they are usually accepted as closest members. The actual activity at school is rather a test of the knowledge that is acquired at home during the week. At school, each student is given a special piece of paper 5, on which is printed the entire lesson that he must learn by next time. A lesson usually consists of several verses from the Bible, the most important of which must be memorized (from 10 to 15 verses), and several explanatory questions and answers to the place being studied. Immediately in a special font, the so-called “golden text" is printed, i.e. a text that expresses the essence of all moral teaching contained in the memorized passage of the Bible. Then there is a series of practical comments, very useful for both students and teachers. And in general, such a mass of useful knowledge is grouped on this sheet of paper that after studying it, the whole place of St. The Scriptures are made quite clear to every child. The school opens and closes with common prayer, and since the lesson is interspersed with the singing of sacred hymns, which are also studied by the children, it acquires a special attraction for children who, with uncontrollable eagerness, go to Sunday school as if it were a holiday. To maintain the Sunday school system, there is an extensive society, the so-called "American Sunday School Union" 6, which has a significant fund, from which, among other things, expenses are made for the purchase of books and other aids for poor schools. The same society supplies all schools with the described lesson sheets, which are published periodically indicating the lesson for each Sunday. At the end of each year, the society prints a detailed report, from which one can judge the state of education in Sunday schools. We have a report. for 1882, from which, by the way, it is clear that in the reporting year 7 1/2 million attended Sunday schools. children. The report even included a map showing the distribution of schools across the country with special red icons. In a word, this is a kind of public ministry for the religious and moral upbringing and education of children. In Sunday schools, as we said, mainly young people of both sexes study, but among the teachers there are also venerable elders who have devoted their entire lives to this good cause. And among the latter, it is not uncommon to meet persons of high social status - bankers, famous lawyers, city mayors, judges, governors of individual states with their spouses, and even members of Congress and legislative assemblies. Happ. in the city of New Jersey, neighboring New York, the Sunday school teacher was the rector or the so-called president of the local college, and he did not leave this teaching even when he became a senator of Congress. Chief Justice Marshall (in Vermont) was a Sunday school teacher until his death. In Cincinnati, one of the Sunday school teachers includes the head of a large banking house. President Harrison, before leaving for Washington to the famous White House, spent the last Sunday of his private life in Sunday school, where he had previously been a teacher. In a word, Sunday school in America is the best expression of the religious and moral meaning of American society, and in its organization it is a highly effective instrument for maintaining religion and morality among the people. In conclusion to the outline of the Sunday school system, it may also be mentioned that next to the Sunday school there are so-called “Bible classes." This is also a kind of school for religious instruction, but a school for all adult parishioners. Bible classes meet on certain days in the week, and here the pastor explains a certain reading from the Bible to hundreds of listeners, many of whom are highly educated. These classes could be compared with our non-liturgical interviews, but their significant difference is that here the pastor not only explains a well-known “lesson”, but also asks questions to his listeners in order to make sure how much they have mastered the subject of the conversation, i.e. the matter is conducted in a purely catechetical manner. Thus, thanks to the system outlined, the people in America learn religion throughout their lives - from early childhood to old age, and since all this teaching has the Bible as its subject, it is not surprising to meet in America many people - not only those who deeply know St. Scripture, but also those who know it all by heart. But here they say that in America religion is excluded from school and even entire more or less “liberal” theories are built on this. Sunday school, with its educational system, usually so imbues children with the spirit of religiosity and attachment to the church that even after completing their course they are not willing to part with it and look for a replacement for its religious and moral education in the establishment of special societies at parish churches. These are the so-called “parish societies of young people”. Such societies exist at every parish church and their goal is to maintain a moral connection between the young people of the same parish at that critical moment in life when young people begin to scatter from the common nursery along the paths of various professions and everyday activities. These societies usually gather on certain days in the vestibule of the parish church; Here abstracts are made, religious hymns are sung and in general time is spent in pleasant interaction. It often happens that such societies invite famous scientists to give lectures, which then acquire a public character, and famous foreigners traveling in America are especially often invited for this purpose. But these private parish societies constitute only a pale reflection of the one great society which constitutes the true ark of salvation for thousands of young people of both sexes. This is precisely the well-known “Christian society of young people”, the organization of which is so interesting that we consider it worthwhile to introduce it, "The Christian Society of Young Men" 7 has existed in America since 1852, and although it was borrowed from England in its idea, its practical application fully reflects the deep religious, moral and at the same time everyday meaning that distinguishes the American people. Its idea is very simple and it could easily have arisen in the mind of anyone, more or less inspired by philanthropy, a person who had to observe the life of young people in such large centers of public life as Paris, London, New York. Every year thousands and tens of thousands of young people flock to these so-called basins of social life, who, for the first time entering the everyday field, are here looking for the first paths leading to the field of life that is tempting for young minds. By its very essence, this is obviously a critical moment in a person’s life and it depends on it whether a person will be able to get out on the path of life unharmed, or whether his strength will weaken in the fight against the flow of new impressions and. the abyss of life will spin him and drag him to destruction. The tragedy of the situation is further increased by the fact that the young man, far from his homeland and the beneficial influence of his native hearth, finds himself completely alone among a sea of ​​strangers who do not care about his struggle and suffering. And it is not surprising that if many strong in spirit and patience set out on the road, then many at the same time despair and fall, unable to withstand the difficult struggles of life and disastrous temptations - they perish due to indifference, and sometimes, perhaps even due to the gloating of the people around them. It was this observation and the resulting sympathy for young people that led to the founding of the “Young Men's Christian Society.” According to the charter of the New York branch of this society, it “has as its goal the improvement of the spiritual, mental and social condition of young people in the city of New York by organizing lectures, conversations, libraries, reading rooms, public meetings and all other means and aids that may contribute to the achievement of the goal.” But the most remarkable side of this society is that, in accordance with the prevailing mood in American society, it immediately took on a deeply religious character, and according to the main idea, this society has as its goal “to unite, as stated in one circular, those young people who, recognizing Jesus Christ as their God and Savior, according to Holy Scripture, wish to be His disciples in their faith and in their lives, and to combine their efforts to spread the kingdom of Christ among young people” 8. As if prompted by a deep, urgent need, the society found a sympathetic response everywhere and in a few years managed to spread throughout all more or less significant cities in America. And now, with its current organization, it provides innumerable benefits for the younger generation of the country. This society is something like a religious and moral brotherhood. Any young man can be a member of this by contributing two dollars annually to the treasury, and for a small sum he is enabled to enjoy all the extensive rights granted by the society. In New York, this society owns a huge house with a large library, a magnificent reading room, and gymnastics. Lectures are given weekly on all sorts of subjects, tailored to the needs of young people; there is a daily prayer meeting at which sacred hymns are sung; From time to time, famous scientists and theologians are invited to give public lectures on the most pressing issues, and finally, at certain intervals, there are even pleasure meetings where young people have the opportunity to spend time pleasantly in innocent amusement. And members of society enjoy all this for free. But the best side of this society is that among it every young man feels as if in his native environment: all members certainly call each other brothers, and in the representatives of the society every young man can find a kindred participation in any disaster or misfortune that befalls him. Finding himself in a completely foreign city without a place, he can safely turn to society, in full confidence that he will not only be treated with sympathy, but will also take care to find a suitable occupation, will be provided with benefits for a while, will be visited when sick, and in the hours of evening boredom and despondency, he can count on finding amusing and encouraging entertainment all in the same “Christian society of young people.” And how much youthful strength is thus saved for social life, which otherwise would not be able to withstand the struggle for existence or the fight against the harmful temptations of noisy city life! This extremely useful society has its branches in almost all American colleges and universities, its branches are in almost all more or less significant cities, and we ourselves have had to experience its moral and religious influence more than once. As a foreigner thrown into the midst of a completely alien world, I sometimes experienced attacks of that depressing feeling called homesickness. A melancholy heaviness oppressed my heart, work fell out of my hands, and in such difficult moments I more than once sought encouragement and entertainment precisely in the “Christian Society of Young People,” in its reading room and in its public meetings. And more than once, under such circumstances, we had to be transported in our thoughts to our northern capital. How many young people from all over Russia gather here every year, arriving here with the brightest hopes and enthusiasm of youth, with a thirst for higher education; and how much disappointment, murderous melancholy, depressing loneliness these enthusiasts have to experience solely because they do not find anywhere the strong moral support that young nature needs most. And in view of this, it is not surprising that our student youth are such easy prey for all sorts of dark agitators. Lacking morally healthy entertainment, she seeks low and rude entertainment; not encountering morally ennobling solidarity, she is carried away by the solidarity of criminal communities and perishes in dozens - for the church, society, science and the state... Americans in this regard are more practical and more humane than us. According to the latest report we have (for 1882), the “Christian Society of Young Men” has up to one hundred thousand members, and this hundred thousand army of deeply religious and highly moral young people constitutes a reliable stronghold of the moral well-being of the country, not only in the present but, most importantly, in the future. But besides such societies, which have as their goal the positive maintenance and strengthening of the religious and moral spirit among the people, in America there are also societies that wage a direct struggle against the negative phenomena of moral life, and among the latter kind of societies, perhaps the most remarkable and at the same time least known, we have the so-called “New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.” 9 It is perhaps most remarkable because it shows how strong the sense of moral self-protection is in young American society and how much more common sense in this regard are the inhabitants of a democratic republic than the representatives of our liberal journalism. We remember how this journalism, with frenzy and its characteristic cynical, rudeness, attacked our great, now lamented patriot Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov, when, in the darkest and most shameful era of nihilistic bloody bacchanalia for our society, he proposed a project for education in society itself, in addition to the police, so to speak, public bodies for uncovering dens of sedition. The Inquisition, espionage, the Middle Ages - all this, along with many other terrible things, was mentioned here just to throw mud at the thought of the great patriot. And yet, exactly the kind of society that Ivan Sergeevich designed exists and flourishes on the soil of the freest country in the world - precisely in the democratic republic of North America. And now I must ask forgiveness before the great shadow of the ardent patriot that, despite his written request to me, I did not manage to introduce this side of American life to the Russian public in print in time and I am fulfilling the promise I made only now. – “The Society for the Suppression of Vice” is precisely an expression of public initiative in the fight against moral and social evil. The direct responsibility for the prosecution and suppression of vice and crime naturally lies with the official bodies of the police and administration. But not only here, but also in America, official bodies do not always show sufficient energy in the performance of their direct duties and, not being morally interested in them, usually limit themselves to formal performance of them. If we add to this the possibility of bribery and other temptations offered by agents of dark deeds to the official guardians of order, then it is not surprising that many measures aimed at suppressing vice and protecting popular morality remain without strict application. And so, in order to better protect people’s morality from this particular side, a “society for the suppression of vice” was formed in New York. It was composed of enthusiasts of popular virtue, counts in its midst many respectable persons from society and the clergy, and its chairman is the former rector of New York University, the Honorable Crosby. And this is society – horribile dictu! - has secret agents who keep an eye on all the distributors and perpetrators of vice, cover them even where the official eye of the police officials does not penetrate or does not want to penetrate, and bring them into the hands of justice, at the trial they themselves are prosecutors, present witnesses to prove the truth of the accusation, and calm down only when vice and crime receive their well-deserved punishment before the law. But the main and special goal of this society is the persecution of immoral and corrupting literature in all its forms, and its activity in this regard is tireless. These are the strictest censors of the immoral element in literature, especially folk and children's literature, and we can safely say that they would mercilessly burn and exterminate a considerable portion of that children's and folk literature that is published in our country every year with the permission of official censorship. We say - destruction and burning - in the literal sense. Agents of the society sometimes seize and arrest entire editions of immoral books and, having brought the publishers to trial, the publications themselves are literally burned at the stake, as depicted in the vignette adorning the front page of the society's reports. Thus, we see here a remarkable example of public censorship in a country that enjoys complete freedom of the press. Thanks to the efforts of this society, important laws have been enacted in the state of New York to limit the spread of immorality through literature and the press, and the members of the society are the inexorable guardians of these laws. The influence of the society extends to all colleges and universities, and it is especially concerned about protecting students from the harmful influence of immoral literature, and for this purpose directly appeals to the authorities of educational institutions for assistance. The zeal of this society in pursuing its goals can be judged by the fact that every year it destroys entire thousands of pounds of immoral literature and subjects its publishers to fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars before the law. Last year, the society fined such publishers 300,000 rubles. with our money. Finally, this same society extends its influence to all public and public libraries, compiles catalogs of books that are harmful in its opinion, and these books are no longer issued in the library to all more or less young, spiritually unstable readers. Therefore, in the illustrious country of a free press, a young man or young woman can write essays, for example. Zola’s so-called “forbidden” works are less accessible than ours to high school boys and girls, even first graders. The same common sense also characterizes the widespread network of so-called “temperance societies” in America. 10 It must be said that the people in America, despite the whole sea of heterogeneous immigrants who flow there every year from various countries of the world and, of course, bringing with them their ingrained habits and customs, are distinguished by remarkable sobriety, especially the rural population. In large cities, especially where the alien German and Irish element is strong, vice intemperance, of course, finds rich soil for its spread, but even here it persists only in the lower, unstable, ignorant environment, and apparently weakens with the intellectual and social rise of classes. In the middle-educated classes, which can include teachers and female teachers of city schools, minor officials, clerks, college students and the like, the American sense of decency requires almost strict abstinence. Having once been invited to an entertaining evening, where hundreds of young people of both sexes from the specified class gathered for public amusement, I was struck by the extraordinary fact in our Rus' that such an evening was completely an “evening of abstinence,” that is, the strongest drink on it was only lemonade (and he, I will say frankly, involuntarily and immediately transferred my thought to that “lemonade” that inspires the famous evenings of our student youth). – Since the public conscience, so to speak, treats the vice of drunkenness in this way, the law and the court have every opportunity to boldly and openly take the side of the virtue of abstinence. And indeed the law and court in America punish the vice of drunkenness with a severity and even severity that is remarkable for a republic. On Sundays, drinking establishments are necessarily closed, drunks on the streets are subject to arrest and fines, the law and the court in any case take the side of sobriety, when, for example, they punish with a fine the owners of those drinking establishments where workers are allowed to get drunk and drink away their earnings. Every mother of the family has the right to bring a claim for recovery from the owner of the drinking establishment where her husband drinks away his labor money, in full confidence that the court will take her side. But the public conscience is not yet satisfied with all this and strives for an even greater suppression of the vice - in the person of “temperance societies". Their main goal, of course, is to spread the idea of sobriety among the people through sermons, the press, meetings, and so on, but at the same time, the agents of society act, so to speak, as public guardians of the already existing laws against drunkenness. These laws, due to the negligence or deliberate weakness of the police, may sometimes not be observed, as in reality they are not observed in some cities. But in this case, the agents of “temperance societies” are the inexorable punishers of lawbreakers. There were often cases when agents of these societies, having entered a drinking establishment on a Sunday from a secret entrance under the guise of visitors, at the same time caught the violator of the Sunday law red-handed. These same agents act in court as voluntary and inexorable prosecutors where it is necessary to punish drunkenness, and as selfless defenders where it is necessary to support the side of the virtue of abstinence, as, for example, in the case of a lawsuit against the owners of drinking establishments. Temperance societies are widespread throughout the country and it is remarkable that they are all organized according to the system of religious societies. They are usually led by preachers and pastors, members sign a special “confession” upon joining, call each other brothers and sisters, exclusively religious hymns are sung at meetings, and so on. In a word, these societies were fully reflected in the deep religious spirit that imprinted the entire life of the American people. And the rallies of these societies, as we personally observed, produce the same fascinating impression on those present as the rallies of religious communities. In some states, temperance societies have gained such importance that they have become the head of the government, and the natural result of this everywhere is the complete closure of all drinking establishments, with the right to sell alcoholic beverages granted only to pharmacies, and only with a doctor’s prescription. The power of persistence in carrying out the ideas of a society by its individual members can be seen in the famous example of the former President of the United States, Gayes. He and his wife belonged to one of the temperance societies, and when moving to the White House for the high presidential post, they decided to remain faithful to the oath of society, and for this purpose they undertook a gigantic struggle with the highest Washington society, which, like any metropolitan society, is of course not alien to the use of wine, which serves as a favorite seasoning for large public and state dinners. First of all, they expelled this custom from the White House, then, with truly heroic self-sacrifice, the ideas of the temperance society were applied to large public and state dinners, and finally, after a stubborn struggle with the ingrained custom of metropolitan society, a struggle that cost much moral suffering and self-sacrifice and was carried out mainly on the shoulders of the heroic Mrs. Gayes, the idea of ​​temperance triumphed. Washington society came to terms with the necessity, and dinners without wine even became especially fashionable. And so, thanks to the persistence of the President's family, the capital of the North American republic, at least during the four years of Gayes's presidency, was the most sober capital in the world, and Mrs. Gayes and her distinguished husband were honored with the most enthusiastic addresses of gratitude and praise from all the temperance societies in the country. It is remarkable that the ideas of temperance societies find fertile ground in American colleges and universities, and we personally have met young educated people who, having signed the “confession” of temperance societies, positively, with some kind of superstitious fear, avoided even touching the insidious drink. It is not surprising that there are fanatics of abstinence who preach about it to the point of absurdity. In the Baptist community one day, on the initiative of extreme teetotalers, even the question arose about whether wine could be consumed in the Eucharist. And remarkably, this question at one time became the all-captivating interest of the day: but whole series of scientists and journalistic articles appeared on it, the daily newspaper press was diligently dealing with it, reporters scoured the city, collecting and publishing the opinions of all more or less competent people, and finally this question was resolved with the answer that it is possible, but only unfermented wine, on which the Last Supper was allegedly celebrated. As can be seen from individual articles appearing in American magazines, this question has not lost its vital interest to this day, and this entire curious movement represents an interesting feature in the social life of our transatlantic friends. In addition to these societies, one could point out a whole series of others, in which the strength of the religious and moral self-awareness of the American people is also manifested, but the examples given are sufficient to show how deeply the religious element penetrates into the social life of this people, how it gives special vitality and moral seriousness to their life and activities. But to complete the description, I will point out one more feature, which, stemming from the strength of the religious, moral and generally spiritual self-awareness of the people, perfectly characterizes the general moral character of this young and promising people. This trait is an unusually strongly developed sense of civic valor. An American - a merchant, a railroad king, a scientist, a professor - never closes himself in a narrow shell of selfishness from all public interests, and hence his extreme responsiveness to public needs and requirements. It is enough to identify some social need, and funds will pour in in abundance from everywhere. It was enough for the Roman Catholic cathedral, which was in Baltimore in 1884, to express the need for the founding of a special Roman Catholic university in America, and money - literally hundreds of thousands and millions - poured in from all sides, and the university was opened a year after the very idea of ​​it was announced. The same civic valor was reflected in the fact that American society, exclusively through public forces, without any government assistance, has grown and supports the entire system of higher education: all universities and colleges are founded and supported by private funds, professors are also supported by private scholarships, their libraries were formed by private donations. Public libraries, museums, and the Academy of Arts in New York are based on the private funds of individual capitalist patrons, and are named after their founders (for example, Astor Library, Lenox Library, etc.). Finally, every American considers it his sacred duty by will to devote part of his capital to public needs - to churches, colleges, public schools, or generally for educational and charitable purposes. Every now and then you can read in newspapers about large donations from individuals, and a typical example is the donation of twenty million dollars by the Californian millionaire Stafford (i.e., about forty million rubles at our rate) to found a university in California. Scientists and writers also mostly bequeath their savings to the causes of science and education, and most recently one can point out, for example. to the famous historian Parkman, who bequeathed about one hundred thousand dollars to Harvard University. All these facts (of which dozens could be cited) undoubtedly indicate a high development of a sense of civic valor, so to speak, the consciousness of a moral connection with the social-state organism, and again, here the driving motive, without any doubt, is that deep religious and moral spirit that underlies the entire life of the American people and which alone can lead an individual out of the destructive mire of narrow selfishness into the expanse of true Christian brotherly love - which in everyday language is civic valor. When observing such facts, we often involuntarily had to be transported in thought to our distant homeland, and with such a comparison, that indifference appeared in an even sadder light, the complaint about which in our country is the constant song of journalism and all friends of public undertakings and enterprises. At that time e.g. Just as we hear everywhere a cry about the lack of funds for public education, especially for maintaining the newly opened system of parochial schools, in America, according to the official report, voluntary monetary and other donations amounting to ten million dollars, i.e., about twenty million rubles, are made annually for public education. But never has this contrast, unfavorable for us, appeared as clearly as in 1883, when our great writer, who glorified our literature in the Western world, died (I.S. Turgenev - Ed.). He, according to his own statement, passionately loved his homeland, was such a great patriot that, out of love for his fatherland, he lived almost his entire life abroad (!). He possessed an enormous fortune, which annually gave him up to 30,000 rubles of income, and he lived and died as a single person. In such a situation, an American would certainly found an entire college named after himself, or would forever ensure the maintenance of public schools for an entire district or district and thereby perpetuate his name in a grateful country; and our great writer, who so artistically and eloquently described in his works the spiritual poverty of the Russian people, that cry about the lack of means for enlightenment that is heard from edge to edge, must again, out of love for this people and his homeland, bequeath all his acquired and even hereditary wealth to his French friends... Of course, de mortuis aut bene, ant nihil; but when the time for criticism comes, it will undoubtedly appreciate this sad stain on the moral personality of a talented writer, and it is unlikely that all the brilliance of his literary genius will be able to brighten up this glaring lack of civic valor and patriotic sanity... 11 But we have to finish. From observing and studying the life of the Socialist-American people, the conclusion that is naturally drawn is that the life of this people is imbued with a strong religious and moral element, and that this element, as the most general and all-captivating, imparts a special vitality, so to speak, a captivating enthusiasm and passion, to any social activity and to any social enterprise. This feature of the American folk spirit was strongly and expressively defined by the famous author of “The Life of J. Christ” F. Farrar, when, during his last year’s trip to America, characterizing the vigorous activity of the people, in one of his speech delivered to students at Harvard University, he said that the driving motive for this extraordinary activity is nothing other than faith, that faith that moves mountains. And in this regard lies the instructive side of the American life. The lethargy and fragmentation that characterizes our social life, alas, goes hand in hand with religious indifference, which, like winter frost, slows down all the wheels of our social life, enlivened only sometimes by the eccentric antics of sensational preachers who are alien to the popular spirit of rationalistic pietism. But if there is something instructive for us in the positive side of American life, then it is even more instructive in its negative side, which will form the subject of our next reading. III. The religious essence of Protestantism and its ecclesiastical and practical inconsistency. Kingdom of sects and divisions Protestantism in its full development. The wandering of religious thought. Rationalism - Unlimited arbitrariness of preachers and degeneration of preaching. – The circle-like isolation of parish churches and their inaccessibility to the common people. – Helpless victims of religious demagogues. – Dark sectarianism with an admixture of quackery, – “Independent Catholic” and “physiological” churches. - Salvation Army. Any force, no matter how beneficial it may be in itself, can bring all its benefit only when it acts under certain limiting and guiding conditions. Outside of such conditions, the most beneficent force either loses its good side or even takes on a destructive character. Fire is the most beneficial and most necessary element for human life and culture, and yet this same fire at any moment, in the absence of restraining conditions, can grow into an all-consuming flame and turn entire cities into ashes. The same is true in the field of religion. Strong faith and living religious feeling can move mountains, but at the same time, in the absence of established regulating conditions, they can give rise to phenomena that place a heavy burden on the conscience of the people. This is precisely the phenomenon observed in the religious and moral state of the American people of the United States. This people, as we have seen, is distinguished by a strong energy of religious feeling and is therefore extremely sensitive to the interests of religious truth; and yet the main religious system in which Christianity is expressed in North America does not provide sufficient security for the religious conscience, not only in the confidence of preserving the truth, but also against direct deviation from it. This is precisely Protestantism, which is the predominant religious principle in North America and to which the country itself owes its settlement, since, avoiding oppression in the Old World, it sought freedom of development for itself in the New. There, using complete freedom, he could freely express his religious essence in its entirety, and therefore, for assessing the essence of Protestantism, the study of the church-religious state of America provides the best data. Protestantism as a religious system is based on two main principles, from which all its content logically develops. As a negation of the Roman Catholic system, which had brought the external church organization to the suppression of all personal initiative, he began to teach that the church is only a spiritual, invisible society and members can be united in it only in the most general principle, namely only in faith; so that everyone who believes that he has been redeemed by Christ is thereby a member of the church, whatever his views may be in all other respects. Then, in contrast to the Roman Catholic system, which denied the individual his own participation in determining the true doctrine, he rejected the authority of the church and tradition and determined that every person, with the help of his own reason, on the basis of the only sacred. The Scriptures can and should determine what his religious creed should be, “what his faith is,” and his moral code. The basis of this doctrine is obviously the idea that the realm of the spirit is the realm of freedom, and therefore, if anywhere a person can be completely free, then it is in spiritual life, and especially in its highest sphere—religion. Hence the denial of all authority in Protestantism and the provision of complete freedom of speculation to each individual person. But at the same time, a small thing is missed that takes away the unconditionality of the truth itself, namely, that complete freedom presupposes the purest spirit; and since a person is not a pure spirit, but is a combination of spirit and body, this very combination in itself limits the spirit and makes it dependent on many completely extraneous conditions. As a result of this, limitation is necessary, the limits of which can narrow as a person rises along the steps of the ladder of education, or expand to the last degree - as he descends into the area of ​​ill-enlightenment and ignorance. But there is no such stage of education and enlightenment where the spirit would completely throw off the fetters of limitation and where it could contemplate the truth not as in the mirror of fortune-telling, but face to face, and therefore it always needs a certain authority that could serve as a criterion for its logical work. This truth has found its fullest expression in our Orthodox Church, where, within certain limits, freedom of religious speculation is allowed (and these limits are so wide that there is room for the greatest genius of speculative thought to develop within them), and at the same time, a firm, unshakable, unchanging, support point for theological thought is constantly given in the universal mind of the church, in tradition, which is the result of centuries-old thought and experience of the entire Christian society. Thanks to this, in the Orthodox Church, every person, depending on his mental makeup, can either experience with his mind the deepest truths of theology, or simply adhere to those established rules that serve as the external expression of these great truths, in full confidence that here he has the immutable truth in its simplest form, tangible for the simplest mind, and this confidence is guaranteed by the high and immutable authority of the church. The Protestant believer is in a completely different position. If he has the ability to speculate, then he can, of course, with his enlightened mind embrace and comprehend the highest truths of theology and even find in history some strong point for testing his speculation, but due to the fact that for the Protestant mind there is no constant, obligatory authority in the person of the church, he can easily get carried away by the results of logical thought, give them more meaning than they actually have, and thus go beyond the boundaries of true Christianity and fall into heretical error. He rushes like a ship across the boundless sea, having lost his compass. In the distant blue he imagines a luxurious shore with a cozy pier, he heads there in full sail; but the mirage disappears and the ship is smashed into smithereens on an underwater cliff. But even more helpless is the position of the simple uneducated masses, who in the most enlightened countries constitute the immeasurable majority of the population. Not having the opportunity to independently formulate a religious worldview for themselves and at the same time not having the immutable authority of the church, which could replace their insufficient personal reason, this mass in Protestantism must, of necessity, slavishly adhere to the letter of the Bible, in interpreting it rely on the arbitrariness of the pastor, and in church life live the same tradition, which is denied theoretically, or become the prey of all sorts of charlatans acting as uncalled reformers. We saw all this in reality when studying the church and religious life of North America. As regards, first of all, the speculative side of theology in America, the indicated extremes of Protestant theology on American soil could have happened all the more easily since the American mind is extremely prone to speculative thought. Here we have a whole speculative theological school, headed by such strong minds as Parker and Emerson. This school of American transcendentalism was formed on the basis of Puritan New England, where it now has a representative in the state of Massachusetts in the famous school of speculative philosophy in the town of Concord. It should be noted first of all that this speculative school, for all its deviations from the authority of the universal church and sound theology, is distinguished by a deep religious spirit. Religion and philosophy are inseparable in it, and the school itself has as its ultimate goal to establish harmony between religion and science, since “science, in Parker’s literal expression, is a natural ally of religion and to separate them means to separate what is united by God.” Nevertheless, since here reason does not recognize the authority of the church, rationalism still gains complete dominance, and it finally leads theological thought to monstrous conclusions that destroy true Christianity. This was even noticed by representatives of the Unitarian community in Boston. When Emerson, in 1838, in his inaugural lecture at Harvard University, expressed his profession of faith and directly rejected miracles on the ground that the intervention of God is conceivable only in the normal administration of the laws of nature, that church history has distorted by various exaggerations the personality of Jesus - “that only spirit in history who fully appreciated the dignity of man,” this lecture created a terrible alarm in the community, and in the famous “Association of Preachers of Boston the question was directly raised: whether Emerson belongs with his party to Christianity, or to a special “Boston religion?” Parker answered this question with his sermon “on the transitory and permanent element in Christianity,” and here he fully expressed what Emerson left unsaid, namely, that their school sees in Jesus only the perfect type of religious man, who drew great religious and moral truths from his own conscience, enlivening them with his love for humanity, that among the transitory elements in Christianity is the belief that the Bible contains the supernatural revelation and that in Christ there was a supernatural essence, and not just the spiritual and moral perfection that He had in common with other great founders of religious systems. It is clear that this is already pure rationalism, as we see it in the theories of Strauss and Rfnan. But nevertheless, it did not lead to that complete denial of the supernatural and to complete atheism, which, as we know, ended with Strauss, but on the contrary, according to the mindset of the American mind, it led to the formation of a special church, the so-called “free religious community,” headed by Pastor F. Hinkley. And it is remarkable that this new “church” immediately claimed the same legal rights that belong to other churches; namely, the right to marry, to have immovable and tax-free church property, etc. But it must be said that the commission appointed by the legislative assembly to investigate whether the new community really constituted a religion in the full sense of the word doubted this and therefore did not immediately grant it the required rights, granted only to truly religious communities that clearly express faith in God. On this subject, a not uninteresting conversation took place between the chairman of the commission and Ginckley, throwing a curious light on the vague vagueness of the creed of the new community. Since the community program submitted for consideration stated that its exclusive goal was “the pursuit of virtue, the study of truth and the rooting of a sense of brotherhood in people,” the president of the commission remarked to Ginkley that he did not see from the program to whom they actually turned with prayer in their worship. To this Ginkley replied: – As individuals we represent all shades of free inquiry, but as a community we have some element of a certain cult. All sane minds recognize a certain Power outside of us and above us. We think we recognize the great beginning of things when we recognize this Power, although we do not recognize it as other churches recognize it. -What do you idolize? - asks the president, puzzled by this impenetrable speculative fog. “I am quite disposed to explain to you,” answered Ginkley, but I do not think that it is the duty of the government to determine what people should or can idolize. “I heard,” the president continued, how you said earlier that you do not recognize either God, Christ, or the Bible. “All I said,” answered the preacher of the vague religion, is that we cannot recognize them the way other churches recognize them. In general, we recognize only a certain Force that influences people. – But what you call Power, is it exactly what others call God? – Yes, you are beginning to understand it. From this point on you will encounter irreconcilable differences, both within and without the churches. The legal rights of the church community were nevertheless recognized for this vague church; but you can be sure that the president of the government commission never understood what they would actually worship in this strange church, whose name would be invoked during oaths and who would be called as a witness to the marriages concluded by the ministers of this church. But it is clear that such vague speculation is accessible only to a small circle of philosophically educated people, of whom the new church was composed. Nevertheless, there is no such absurdity that would not require special popularizers in order to introduce a certain vague idea into the simple popular consciousness. At the general beginning of free religion in New York, a new community was formed called the “society for moral culture.” The Boston community had already reduced almost all of its speculation to the practical goals of moral improvement, but above everything it recognized a Power that was still inexplicable and unclear to the founders of the new church. In the New York community a further step was taken towards the elimination of metaphysics from theology, and the exclusive goal of this community was directly moral improvement, without any reference to a supreme Power. Moreover, here the moral element is advanced so much that the religious element is completely subordinate to it and, according to the explanation of the founder of the “community of moral culture" Felix Adler, religion itself is only an appendage ghost, needed only for the external unification of moral doctrines. Every Sunday he preaches in New York about the heights and sanctity of moral perfection; but he constantly lets his listeners know that he does not recognize either God or the immortality of the soul. “I do not accept theism, he said in one of his sermons. But the foundations can survive the building itself and serve for some new building. And I hold on to the foundations of theism with all my might: it makes it possible, first, to deny chance, that is, to believe that order reigns in the world, and then to believe that this order is good, that is, that there is progress in the world." It should be noted that Adler is of Jewish origin, and his community at first consisted almost exclusively of representatives of that reformed Judaism, which, on the free soil of America, seeks to throw off the yoke of Talmudic legality. But then the pagans also came, i.e. members of other confessions, and it was from these heterogeneous elements that the society in question was composed, and in it all those restless minds who finally felt the disappearance of all solid ground began to seek a hereditary refuge. That this truly desperate situation is proved by the remarkable fact that people entered this and similar new communities, many of whom passed through almost all communities and sects, seeking in vain to satisfy the living religious need of their spirit. A typical example is the famous American thinker and writer Orestes Brownson. Born into the Presbyterian community, he began to seek the true church from early childhood, tried all religious communities and sects until the most extreme sect of the Unitarians, finally entered the rationalist community and became a zealous propagandist of Boston transcendentalism, as preached by Parker and Emerson, and yet finally converted to Roman Catholicism, where he died in 1876. This restless wandering through the wilds of sectarianism and this desperate leap from vague transcendentalism into the arms of the medieval system - what is it if not the despair of a strong religious mind to find peace in the system of Protestantism? And such examples are not isolated. On the contrary, these are clear types of the vacillation and wandering of theological thought, which is necessary and inevitable in this system, which deprives the individual of reliable support in the teaching authority of the church. But this hesitation and wandering of thought is not limited to individuals. It also distinguishes the very communities or churches into which the Protestant population of America is divided. This is most clearly stated in the fact that discord usually occurs among the communities themselves, which first leads to the division of the community into parties that disagree with each other in their understanding of the essential points of the doctrine, and with further intensification of the discord, it turns into a complete break, sometimes leading to the formation of new communities and sects. This phenomenon is noticeable even in such established communities as the Episcopal Church, where there was a party dissatisfied with the growth of sound catholic principles in this church, as a result of which it separated into a new community called the “Reformed Episcopal Church.” The same is noticeable in Methodism, Presbyterianism and other communities where the leaven of Protestantism lives. Among their members there may always be such reasoners and enthusiasts who wish to take full advantage of the right of personal freedom of religious speculation, reject those conventional forms into which the religious principle is accidentally formed, and, at their own risk and peril, form new and new communities and sects, up to the vague Theosophy and Mormonism. But what is most remarkable here is not this fragmentation, but the fact that in Protestantism, even in the most established communities, there is no strong confidence in their religion. A person belongs to a well-known church, attends with zeal and listens attentively to sermons; but at the same time, the worm of doubt constantly gnaws at his religious conscience: does this church truly express the truth of Christianity? Is the preacher presenting it correctly? Isn’t the preacher more right who in the next church talks about the same subjects in a completely different spirit? And this is a painful feeling. It is similar to the feeling of that passenger on a ship who is not confident in the strength of the ship and in the experience of the captain, and therefore he was constantly worried about the thought whether the ship had now hit an underwater rock on which it would crash and die? Or is it also similar to the state of a person who is not sure of the architecture of his house, and therefore is constantly worried by the thought of whether he has laid the beams that support the ceiling firmly enough, and whether it will collapse at any slightest shock? If there were a higher authority in the church, then of course one could turn to him to resolve perplexities and troubling doubts. But in Protestantism there is no such authority. He, leaving everyone to the personal conscience to create their own salvation, rejected even the authority of the bishop and gave a simple preacher to lead the flock. But the preacher himself does not provide any guarantees of the correctness of his teaching; he can also only be guided by his personal reason, and therefore personal arbitrariness completely reigns in his teaching. This really happens all the time. Different pastors and preachers of the same community often explain well-known Christian truths in completely different ways, and arbitrariness reaches such an extent that conferences of preachers often have to resort to repressive measures to humble or bring to a stricter religious conformity their brothers who have deviated too much from a known religious symbol. But these measures for the most part do not achieve their goal, because the conferences themselves, as private institutions, do not have the proper authority. Meanwhile, this arbitrariness of the preacher falls with all its burden on the conscience of the unrequited and helpless parishioners, who, in the case of the absolutely impossible views of the preacher, have only one way to tame him, namely to reduce the salary paid to him from the parish. And it often comes to the point that a well-known parish absolutely does not know what views their preacher actually holds, since he often, in order not to sharply confuse the conscience of the parishioners, disguises his views with vague generalities. This even happened to the famous Brooklyn preacher Beecher. Once he created an extreme sensation in his community by openly expressing his sympathy for the Roman Catholic Church, in which Protestants were accustomed to see only the so-called “synagogue of Satan”, presided over by the Antichrist - the Pope, and then on another occasion he amazed him even more by declaring that he considered the dogma of the fall and original sin to be an outdated medieval anachronism. Such amazing leaps decisively led to indescribable confusion of all his many admirers, and the question was discussed for a long time, what did their famous preacher actually believe in and on what were his brilliant moralizing sermons based? If such cases are possible even with such high, enlightened and honest preachers, then it is not surprising that among others who are inferior in all respects this theological arbitrariness reaches incredible proportions and serves as a source of numerous misunderstandings that not only bring confusion into church life, but also have a harmful effect on the religious conscience of the people. This arbitrariness, in addition to the dogmatic worldview, is also expressed in the choice of topics for preaching. Since preaching in America is a special profession, for which the best speakers are selected, receiving huge sums of money (Beecher, for example, receives 25,000 dollars, i.e., up to 50 thousand rubles), it is natural that preachers have competition, and those less talented are not averse to resorting to maintaining their fame to means that have little to do with the true goals of preaching. Noticing e.g. Due to their inability to captivate their listeners with expositions of higher religious and moral subjects, American preachers begin to resort to artificial measures, abandon purely religious and moral subjects, invade social and political life, take advantage of all sorts of sensational rumors, exploit court cases that are outstanding for their piquancy, and often play on the string of public passions, especially when they are extremely inflamed - as for example. during presidential campaigns, i.e. electoral struggle to elect the President of the United States. Hence, the very topics that are announced in advance in newspapers are striking in their pretentiousness and sensational nature, obviously designed to lure listeners. As an example, you can indicate, for example. such topics: “about the heavenly police”, about “white horses in heaven” about “dead lions and living dogs”, “about the best choice of brides and grooms”, about “how the Lord threshes us” or “how Satan sows us” and so on in the same way. Of course, such topics can attract listeners who would not go to church if the subject of the sermon were, for example. some serious religious and moral issue; but on the other hand, such preaching obviously already loses its true character and often leads, especially when personal interests are affected, not to the establishment of peace on earth and goodwill in people, but to precisely the opposite results. In 1881, a terrible misfortune occurred near New York: a light two-story pleasure steamer, crowded with hundreds of passengers, collided with an ocean ship, many of whom drowned. The preachers did not fail to make this disaster the topic of their sermons, and one of the young novice preachers gave his topic a character that was highly offensive to the captain of the ill-fated steamer, based on the spectacular juxtaposition of the “Captain of Salvation”, i.e. Jesus Christ, with the "captain of destruction." And so, when he was at the top of his oratorical portrayal of the ineptitude of the captain, who through his lack of management allowed such a misfortune, suddenly a strong and angry voice rang out throughout the entire church: “You liar!” There was a terrible confusion, everyone rushed to the violator of church decorum, who turned out to be the captain of the ill-fated steamship himself, and the sermon ended with a police report. Such cases are not uncommon and they constitute an actual denunciation of the false direction of American preaching, as a result of which it loses a significant share of its morality. In addition to doctrinal and preaching arbitrariness, the extreme Protestant principle is reflected in the extreme isolation of churches. Despite the fact that in America the population is theoretically divided into several large communities, in reality each parish church considers itself a completely independent unit, not recognizing any higher jurisdiction for itself. Among preachers, however, there are various conferences and meetings where the affairs of the entire community are discussed; but these conferences do not have a canonical character and the pastor submits to their verdicts and decrees as long as he finds it useful and beneficial for himself, and can always reject their authority in the matter of ordering affairs in his parish. Here, for him, the highest authority and the highest jurisdiction is the parish itself in the person of his trustees, who pay him a salary and on whom his very right to his position depends. And such isolation not only again contributes to the fragmentation of opinions in doctrine, but at the same time leads to a remarkable phenomenon that extremely narrows the beneficial influence of the church. The fact is that the church, as a separate unit, becomes the complete property of the parish; and by parish we mean only those who bear the expenses of its maintenance; Consequently, the first condition of belonging to the church is the amount paid for the maintenance of the church and the preacher - either in the form of direct contributions by subscription, or in the form of payment for a seat in the church, which in this case is organized entirely according to the system and plan of social clubs. As a result, the church inevitably loses its character of public access; the wealthiest people, who make the largest contributions and rent the most expensive seats, become predominant in it. Competition and rivalry, especially in churches where popular preachers are members, greatly raises the prices of seats usually sold by auction (such as in Beecher's church, where the price of seats sometimes reaches thousands or dollars, a subscription to these seats becomes an object of a kind of fashion and fashionability, and in this way the church is closed in a tight circle of more or less wealthy classes and becomes completely inaccessible to the poor classes of the population. And thus in America the church is decisively losing the character of that true Christian principle, according to which it must represent the complete brotherhood of all believers in Christ and according to which there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, and therefore neither rich nor poor, but everything is one in Christ. With such an organization that establishes the rule of plutocracy, the American church mercilessly excludes from its walls those very hungry and thirsty, toiling and burdened ones, to whom Christ Himself mainly addressed with preaching and good news? And so the common people and especially the poor classes in big cities are deprived as a result of this of the greatest good that can be the lot of a person on earth, namely the good of satisfying the urgent needs of religious and moral nature. This deprivation of the right to fraternal unity in the church is felt all the more strongly and painfully because, according to the principle of the social and state life of the country, all citizens are equal in their rights and responsibilities, all equal members of one democratic republic. And this theoretical equality of rights is blatantly violated precisely in the area of ​​the most sacred rights to the gospel of Christ! But being left, so to speak, behind the fence of the church, the poor and simple people do not lose through this desire to satisfy their religious and moral thirst; on the contrary, as a result of dissatisfaction, thirst intensifies even more, and the people are forced to seek this satisfaction outside the church, from the first available source. And here, in our opinion, the darkest side in the church and religious life of America opens up. Here the simple and most spiritually helpless people, who most of all need the leadership of the church, are completely given over to the power of wolves, who often appear in sheep's clothing. Various “benefactors” of the common people appear in the field, those uncalled or unrecognized preachers who, not being able to win positions in church circles, begin to seek popularity among the abandoned masses of the population, preach to them a poorly understood Gospel and, in order to have a stronger effect on the masses, produce the crudest mixture of the spiritual with the material, the Gospel of Christ with the preaching of socialism, stirring up not only the spirit, but next to it the most dangerous passions. And the poor people, abandoned by the church, go to these sermons in masses, little by little they become saturated with the most harmful ideas and are carried away by illegal feelings. But these uncalled preachers do not limit themselves to this. Having felt their influence, they certainly flare up with the passion of ambition and therefore try to act as special religious reformers who want to renew church and religious life. With truly demagogic shamelessness, they begin to hint at their higher calling, and then directly declare that they had a supernatural revelation commanding them to found a new church - like the “Church of Latter-day Saints” or the “Church of the Second Coming”, etc. And it is here that that sectarian ferment and that extravagance arises and grows stronger, according to which we usually form a view of the entire church and religious life of America. We are far from thinking that the church, in its best representatives, would completely abandon the people. No, we know that among the best preachers there are many selfless individuals who, understanding the entire abnormality of this state of affairs, after preaching before a brilliant assembly of their parishioners, descend into the darkest slums of poverty and savagery in order to say a word of consolation to their miserable inhabitants, often accompanied by material charity (for which each church has a special mug in favor of the poor); but we are talking in general about the attitude of the church towards the poor classes of the people, and in this respect the church in America sins against the basic principle of the Gospel of Christ. Next to wandering preachers, one way or another trying to satisfy the religious needs of the people, charlatans often act as speculators who turn popular ignorance and religion into a source of profit or an object of political ambition. In 1880, a new community was formed in New York under the pretentious name of the “Independent Catholic Church.” Its preachers, under the loud title of “bishops” and “presbyters” of the Roman Catholic Church, through sermons and brochures, began to declare that the time had come to throw off the tyranny of the papacy, that for this purpose they themselves, despite the height and security of their position, left this church and shook off the dust from their feet in order to seek true happiness in the one Christ, to which they called mainly the Irish, very numerous in the Americas and devout Catholics. This sermon found considerable success among the lower classes and even interested me personally, since at that time I was working on my essay on “Roman Catholicism in the Americas” and closely followed all the movements in this church. But imagine my amazement when, a few months later, I read in N. "Herald" that all these so-called "bishops" and "presbyters" were put on trial for a whole series of frauds and deceptive extortion from various pious persons of money for matters that have nothing to do with the religious mission!? It turned out that this whole “independent Catholic Church” was a speculative trick of several charlatans who decided to exploit the religious feeling of the gullible masses. The so-called “physiological church,” founded in New York by a physician around the same time, belongs to the same category. Interested in an advertisement in the newspapers about a peculiar worship service in this monstrous church, accompanied by sermons from its founder himself, Dr. Linner, I went one day to this church and was struck by the dirty, shameless impudence of this founder of the “physiological church.” It is all based on gross deception and unscrupulous exploitation of gullible people. A seat fee will be charged upon entry. The doctor himself sings, to the accompaniment of a harmonium, some wild hymns in honor of nature; then he delivers a sermon about the mysterious forces of nature, in conclusion he offers, or rather imposes on his victims at a very high price, his brochures - most of them with dirty medical content, and the entire “worship” ends with the distribution of business cards of the doctor-preacher, on which his medical art is advertised, supposedly capable of defeating the most chronic and recognized incurable forms of the disease. In this state of affairs, it becomes quite understandable that some more energetic religious movement is capable of quickly spreading among the dark masses and captivating them with the crudest forms of sectarianism, as long as it gives some satisfaction to the religious feeling. The strongest denunciation of the abnormality of this situation of the masses in church-religious terms is the very important success of the notorious sect known as the “Salvation Army.” It originated in England, but in its nature it found a living correspondence in the conditions of the church-religious state of the poor classes in America, so that it can also serve as a characteristic of purely American life. The secret of the success of this monstrous, military caricature community lies in the fact that it has set itself the task of addressing the religious gospel precisely to those classes of the population that are abandoned and left unattended by existing churches. And the pitiful people are carried away with all their soul even by such a monstrous movement, being pleased that Christ and the love of Christ are preached to them here, albeit under the most crude, repulsive forms. I will never forget that painful, heavy feeling that I experienced when I first met the “Salvation Army”. Going one Sunday to Brooklyn, a wealthy suburb of New York, to listen to the sermon of a popular preacher, I suddenly heard a choir loudly singing some songs to the rhythmic beats of a drum. Having learned that this was the “Salvation Army,” I immediately abandoned my previous intention, headed to where the songs were heard, and there an almost incredible sight presented itself to me: a long procession of men and women in original military costumes with epaulettes, stripes and various military badges stretched along a wide panel, and with a measured step, they walked in pairs, led by a “captain” and a drummer. The whole party sang a sacred hymn with a constant refrain: “Oh, I love Christ,” and the captain, every now and then turning to the procession, punctuated his singing with a loud command - one-two, one-two - “Oh, I love Khrist!” The procession headed to the building that served as the place of the usual meeting of the sect, and there began such a wild, frenzied scene, more terrible and disgusting than which I could not imagine. The whole party sank to their knees and began to make frantic swings with a frenzied howl, and finally achieved the so-called “outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” This outpouring was awarded to some fat elderly man, who positively stretched out on the floor and, to the irritating chorus, “army” and calls of “captain”, raised an unbearable hoarse howl, literally a howl, terrible and disgusting. Some old woman rushed towards him as fast as she could, and her flabby, aching, squeaky voice further intensified the terrifying ugliness of the scene. Meanwhile, the captain, with a wildly grinning face, leaned towards them every now and then, saying: “Oh bliss, oh sweetness!..”. At the end, everyone rose and those present were offered brochures about the great revitalizing significance of the “Salvation Army,” as well as individual issues of the newspaper it published: “The War-Cry,” one copy of which I have saved for the sake of curiosity until now. This is the notorious “salvation army” and it is making significant gains among those scum and scum of our civilization, with which all the big cities are crowded, both in America and in Europe. Thus, from the above it is clear to what abnormal, one might say, painful phenomena Protestantism leads to with the unrestricted application of its basic principle - the denial of the authority of the church and the provision of each individual person with his own reason to create his own salvation and, according to the considerations of this reason, to arrange his life. Thanks to this beginning, people with a highly developed ability of speculation drown in a sea of ​​​​foggy transcendentalism; The moderately educated and financially secure classes are locked into close church circles, inaccessible to the common people, and the common, ignorant people become helpless victims of religious quackery or frenzied sectarianism. Such a state of affairs could be detrimental to the religious and moral life of any other people that would have a less strong religious spirit. But the American people, as we showed in the previous reading, are very religious people, and their healthy nature not only does not perish under the corrupting influence of extreme Protestantism, but, on the contrary, vigorously and strongly fights against this influence and even manages to largely defeat this phenomenon or take away a significant share of its corrupting power. We now turn to the characteristics of this struggle. IV. The desire of the American people for church-religious unification and the significance of this Fact. Conclusion Protest of religious feeling against church fragmentation (Revivals). – Consciousness of the inconsistency of the principles of Protestantism and the search for more durable principles of church and religious life. —The desire for church unification and the renewal of this movement at the present time, — The maturation of the catholic element in theology and practice in the Episcopal Church, — “The Congress of Churches” and its significance. - Conclusion Protestantism, as a religious principle that introduces a personal defining element into religious and moral life, should naturally contribute to the revitalization of religious and moral self-awareness more than any other religious system. Taking away from the individual every support point in the authority of the church and leaving it exclusively to answer the question: “what is my faith” and to compose a personal symbol of faith, it obviously constantly maintains the mind and conscience of each individual in a certain excitement, which is all the stronger because here we are dealing with the greatest questions that can only occupy human thought. As a result of this, we must recognize as an undoubted fact that in Protestant countries, religious and moral self-consciousness always necessarily stands higher than in countries with strong church authority. But this advantage is not absolute. It would be the greatest blessing if Protestantism, introducing this exciting stimulus of personal self-determination into religious and moral life, did not lose sight of the other side of the matter, that it is man, as an individual, who is a limited being, that to finally take away from her a stronghold in the authority of the church means to push a person on a fragile boat without oars, rudder and sail into the boundless sea and force him to work with his hands until exhaustion in order to sail to some a quiet haven. It is clear that this situation, with all the force of compulsion to work, cannot be considered favorable or salutary. A person, even on a fragile boat, can, thanks to happy chance circumstances, sail to the pier, but this will be only a happy accident, nothing more. In most cases, he will exhaust himself from exhaustion and despair at the sight of the impossibility of reaching the desired land, he will be powerless to give up and will become a victim of the first squall, which will either flood his fragile boat or throw him onto a rock and break it into pieces. This is precisely the situation in which every person finds himself in Protestantism. From the outside we see strong animation here, we are surprised at the energy of religious feeling and the thirst for religious truth, but we do not see how much depressing despair and helplessness lies at the basis of this external animation. We do not see how these individual individuals, completely left to themselves, powerlessly struggle with the doubts that oppress them and with what despair they look around, in vain searching for such an authority that could instill in them some confidence and allow their souls to breathe peacefully - in the bliss of immutable faith. It is not surprising that in such a terrible situation, the constant excitement of theological thought and religious feeling often leads to complete exhaustion. And therefore, in Protestant countries, we often see, next to the extraordinary excitement of religious and moral self-consciousness, its extreme decline and darkening. Religion here can be compared to the sea, which is either menacingly agitated and raging, or seems to freeze in an unmoving calm. The same can be seen in America. Despite all the strength and height of religious and moral self-awareness, the religious feeling of the American people is apparently tired of fruitless fermentation, and religious life takes shape in forms in which external ritualism often receives more legal obligatoryness than in countries with strong church authority, because during periods of exhaustion of religious feeling for a Protestant Christian there is nothing more left than to soullessly cling to the dead letter of the Bible and that pitiful ritualism that receives a certain recognition from the side, so to speak, of common law. At the same time, the very religious and moral self-consciousness of the people is naturally becoming smaller, and this shrinking is undoubtedly manifested in the caste or circle divisions in which church and religious life in America is expressed. But this state is obviously not natural. It is in direct contradiction with the basic idea of ​​Christianity, which constantly reminds us of the indivisible brotherhood of people, redeemed by the same Savior and God. And so, despite all the artificial barriers dividing people into different religious and ecclesiastical classes, strong impulses at times appear in the American people in which an irresistible religious feeling strives to destroy all these artificial mediastinums and, at least for a time, unite everyone into a single brotherhood under the leadership of the one Savior of all. Such impulses are known in America under the name of "Revivals of Religion" and constitute a highly remarkable and peculiar phenomenon in the religious life of this country. They express the highest degree of religious excitement and at the same time a clear protest against the beginning of church fragmentation operating in Protestantism. “Renaissance” usually occurs when religious life reaches the highest degree of exhaustion and weakening, when extreme deadness reigns everywhere and dead forms suppress the spirit. At this time, in religious, moral and spiritual life in general, some kind of depressing burden is felt everywhere, like extreme languor on a sultry afternoon, and everyone seems to yearn for a refreshing breeze. And it is in these difficult moments that the “rebirth” begins. In its external form, this is, strictly speaking, nothing more than a series of religious rallies, designed to excite those present to the degree of complete religious exaltation. Having identified some area that, in the opinion of religious leaders, requires raising the religious spirit in it, Methodist, Presbyterian or some other Protestant representatives of the church hierarchy send their preachers to this area, who there gather everyone they can to their prayer meetings in the church, where hymns arousing spiritual zeal are sung and sermons are delivered by the pastor with a vivid depiction of the hellish torments awaiting the hardened. sinners, and the bliss prepared for the righteous. At the end of such a sermon, which deeply shakes the nerves of the most impressionable of those present, the pastor invites everyone to indulge in mental confession and quiet prayer: everyone bows their heads, covers their faces with their hands and spends some time in prayer, during which the deep silence of the church is broken only by the slow digestion of a lonely church bell. But as everyone’s general self-absorption into their own conscience continues, the nerves become more and more tense, and here and there deep sighs, suppressed sobs, and groans begin to be heard; then someone rises from among those praying and, under the influence of irresistible religious enthusiasm, we begin to publicly repent of our sins, beat ourselves in the chest, tear out our hair and ask our fellow citizens to pray for him to the Almighty to deliver him from the torments of hell. An example is contagious, especially for nervous people. Three or four days of this religious “revival”, accompanied by abstinence from food, visiting churches several times a day, or equally frequent presence at open-air religious meetings, do not pass until the nervous excitement of sinners converted to the true path begins to take the form of an epidemic. Self-conviction of sins even turns into hysterical fits for some, while for others the desire to atone for their sins takes the practical form of donating their property to charity. Often religious excitement of this nature reaches the point that entire villages begin to sell off their property and liquidate their affairs in the firm conviction of the immediate onset of the end of the world. The winter before last, in one of the rural areas of New England, as a result of such a “revival,” a whole party of villagers was formed, who were expecting the end of the world from hour to hour; they sold all their property, no longer began to sow their fields, and bought themselves white linen mantles, in which they clothed themselves, spending their nights in vigil and prayer, awaiting the hour when they would be taken alive to heaven in this robe 12. But this peculiar religious enthusiasm is not confined to the country people, but often manifests itself in even more marvelous forms in large cities like New York. One such "revival" was in New York in 1857, when the religious enthusiasm of New Yorkers was excited to such an extent that merchants, bankers with their clerks and other business people locked their offices and stores in the middle of the day, flocking in crowds to churches for prayer; when local theaters turned impromptu into religious meeting halls, where preachers addressed their sermons to the audience that filled the buildings. The then religious movement in the states was so intense and universal that it attracted the attention of the entire civilized world. But the most remarkable aspect of these “revivals” for us is that with every more or less strong movement they go beyond the limits of religious forms and take on a universal, indifferently Christian character. A strong religious wave, so to speak, pours over those artificial and petty barriers that Protestantism puts up in the form of small, hostile communities and sects, washes them away, like the uncontrollable pressure of the sea tide washes away the sandy moods of children on the shore, and the members of all communities and sects indifferently gather at the same religious meetings, sing the same sacred hymns and all merge into one religious brotherhood, animated by the same feelings, the same thoughts. Along with religious divisions, all other mental, social and economic divisions are smoothed out here. Religious "revival" meetings are open to all, and here, it may be said, is the only opportunity presented to the poor people, without any charge of admission, to take part in public worship together with all the other classes endowed with the highest mental and material benefits, which in ordinary times divide the people in this democratic country with even stronger mediastinums than anywhere else in other countries. It is clear that these revivals are only temporary. After a certain amount of tension, excitement and enthusiasm weaken, and the old fragmentation returns to church-religious life, locking people into separate isolated church circles and religious communities. But the inner meaning of these movements retains its full meaning. In our opinion, this is a spontaneous protest against that soulless petty sectarianism that corrodes the religious and moral life of the people, and at the same time it is a protest against Protestantism itself. In fact, here, in a strong excitement of religious feeling, you seek satisfaction in such exploits that are denied by Protestantism. Giving each individual the freedom to create his own salvation through his own efforts, Protestantism, however, deprives a person of such strong benefits of religious and moral life as, for example. fasting and confession. But the soul obviously cannot do without these benefits, and therefore during religious “revivals” people indulge in terrifying self-flagellation, exhausting fasting and abstinence, and nationwide frantic confession of their sins. Here it is obvious that those saving institutions, which in the Orthodox Church are recognized as useful aids in the matter of faith and morality and are carried out in a calm and confident consciousness of their salvation, in Protestantism are forced to conquer the people by force, which in turn leads to extremes of frenzy. Thus, “religious revivals” in their essence are nothing more than a spontaneous protest of religious, one might say, instinctive feeling against the abnormalities of Protestantism and serve as a clear expression of the consciousness of its failure as a religious system or church. But this instinctive feeling naturally turns into clear consciousness where a clear and strong theological thought is combined with a living religious feeling. And in America there are quite a few theologically educated people who, from a careful study of the church and religious life of the American people, come to the sad conclusion that Protestantism cannot satisfy all the demands of religious and moral life. This consciousness had a particularly sharp effect soon after the fratricidal war of the early 60s. This war itself was a consequence of the extreme spiritual disunity of individual states, and when this sad crisis occurred, all the best minds thought deeply about the fatal question: where to look for a lasting guarantee against the repetition of such a terrible catastrophe? And then the national consciousness answered this question with remarkable unanimity in the sense that only religious unification can serve as a guarantee. It was then that the idea of ​​a single church appeared, which should unite the entire American people under its banner. The idea is undoubtedly great, worthy of a great people, animated by a strong and living religious and moral self-awareness. But how to implement it? Religion has fragmented into many separate religious forms, each of which recognizes itself as the only true one, and therefore, when the idea of ​​church unification arose, each of the communities came forward with the claim that it should become the one comprehensive church that the American people long for. But this naturally could only lead to new irritation and rivalry between communities, and thus could only contribute to the disunity from which the people long to be freed. Then, from among theologically-minded people, a man emerged who managed to rise above all confessional prejudices and look into the very essence of the church-religious principle that underlies the spiritual life of the American people, and came to the unshakable conviction that the reason for the disorganization of religious and moral life lies in the very essence of Protestantism, that it cannot satisfy the highest demands of church life and cannot serve as the beginning on which a single strong church of a single spiritually American people could be formed. This was the famous American preacher of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Dr. Ewer, who died in 1882. He publicly expressed his thoughts in 1868 from the church pulpit in his famous sermons on the “failure of Protestantism,” which at one time made a huge impression on public opinion in America, since they were recorded in shorthand and published in all the best newspapers. In them, by the way, he expressed bitter reproaches to Protestantism which, in his opinion, having rejected the solid principles of the church, took the slippery path of rationalism, as a result of which a general and most terrible crisis is being prepared for the entire religious-Christian consciousness. Among him, unbelief grows and develops, practical life is freed from the influence of religious-Christian principles and the “communion of saints” is destroyed. It is too one-sided in its narrow individualism and too cold for religious enthusiasm, so that there is no outcome in it for those naturally enthusiastic persons who could find their happiness only in a complete renunciation of the drab practical life in order to devote themselves to the service of the highest divine ideal (monasticism). Due to the one-sided abstraction of its origins, it turned out to be inaccessible to the masses and therefore degenerated into aristocracy with brilliant preaching and high fees for church seats. But even in the most intelligent classes, his wandering instability develops indifference, as a result of which many, tired of the variability of forms, reject all forms of church life and live by one “common” Christianity, getting lost in its foggy uncertainty. Thus, Protestantism, according to Ewer, itself shows its pitiful inability to satisfy the religious needs of mankind. He constitutes a completely unsuccessful and harmful movement and is preparing a terrible crisis. We need to seek salvation from it. But where to look for it? - And then, with his healthy sense, this famous preacher came to the theory that formed the basis for all further church and religious development in America, especially in the Episcopal Church; this is precisely the theory of the “catholic” church, which alone can satisfy the highest demands of church-religious life. According to this theory, the now existing “confessions” in the church are only branches of the same catholic or universal church, and these branches are Eastern Orthodox, Roman and Anglican, and Protestantism with its sects is already a cut off branch from the living skeleton of the church. Therefore, salvation must be sought precisely in this “catholic” church. Here it is obvious that the thought of the preacher-theologian has reached a high degree of church-religious contemplation; but perhaps due to this particular height, he did not bring his analysis to the end, did not indicate more specific incarnations of the Catholic Church and limited himself only to its general abstract definition. But what the preacher’s thought did not prove was soon proved by the very demands of time and life, namely by the general consciousness of that Episcopal Church, from among which this courageous voice was heard. The Protestant Episcopal Church of America is a natural daughter of the Church of England, and therefore retains more catholic self-consciousness and sound ecclesialism than all other Protestant communities in the country. As a result of this, we can naturally be more responsive to the deep religious and church movements of the country, and in it, more than in any other, the great idea of ​​church unification can find a living response. And indeed, when this idea arose, this particular church set about its implementation with particular zeal, and it boldly acted as the church that was destined to unite the entire American people. The task is obviously gigantic and requires from the church, which would begin to implement it, completely solid, historically established principles capable of withstanding the full weight of the task. And it is understandable that, at the first attempt to begin the great work, the Episcopal Church had to admit its complete inability to accomplish it. In its religious essence, this church represents an unsuccessful compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, so unsuccessful that these opposing elements could never achieve a harmonious combination in it, and therefore, with any more or less strong movement, a disastrous and fatal duality is reflected in it. This division did not fail to appear even now, and therefore the first general convention, which was left to consider and decide this unusually important question, came to the sad realization that the Protestant Episcopal Church, left to its own forces, was not able to undertake the great task of ecclesiastical and religious unification of the American people. A sad consciousness, but it necessarily had to force the best thinkers of this church to look for a way out of this sad state. If the Episcopal Church cannot take on a great mission with its present principles, then it undoubtedly must seek support for itself in stronger ecclesiastical principles, namely, in the principles of the Catholic Church. A theologian-thinker like Ewer saw salvation precisely in the Catholic Church, but his Catholic Church is too abstract to be of significance for the urgent, urgent needs of the time. And then the Episcopal Church took a new step towards finding truly Catholic principles, came to the great idea that the best embodiment of Catholic principles should be sought in the Orthodox East, in those churches in which universal Orthodoxy still lives in its unchanging, classical purity. And it was precisely this process of thought that led to that significant movement of the American Episcopal Church towards rapprochement with the Orthodox East, which actively continued throughout the sixties and early seventies. A special committee was formed whose duties were to study the Orthodox East and communicate with its main representatives through written and personal relations. Many members of the Episcopal Church personally traveled throughout Russia and the East, entered into personal relations with patriarchs, synods and metropolitans, among whom the most prominent place was occupied by our famous Saint Philaret of Moscow; and some members, e.g. (the late) Bishop of Florida Freeman Young and Dean Heil even decided to study the Russian language with the aim of directly becoming familiar with Russian theological and liturgical literature, and the determination was so unshakable that the latter finally completely overcame the almost insurmountable difficulties of our language for an American and now reads Russian books with sufficient freedom. This movement had as its goal the establishment, so to speak, of such a union between the churches that would enable the Episcopal Church to strengthen itself in its foundations and thus be able to begin the great task of ecclesiastical unification of the American people, and it, in all its vicissitudes, is described in detail in our books, as well as magazine articles, where we refer those interested in this movement 13 . As is known, it did not lead to its direct goal, and the whole matter was limited to a simple exchange of friendly sympathy between the churches. But this was already a great result. Thanks to this movement, the Episcopal Church became convinced that it could always count on the full sympathy of the Orthodox East in all its good undertakings, and the Orthodox East had the opportunity to be convinced that in the West, even in such a far West as America, the consciousness of its church truth still lives, forcing one to turn to it in cases of great demands of church-religious life, and together for both sides this movement was beneficial in the sense that it made it possible to become more familiar with each other, and thus smooth the way for further relations. After a certain tension, this movement weakened and even seemed to stop completely. But it stopped only externally, while the internal work of religious and theological thought continued with unremitting tension. And at the same time, a highly remarkable phenomenon was discovered. The rapprochement with the Orthodox East and familiarization with its religious principles and church and liturgical practice made an irresistible impression on the representatives of the religious and theological thought of the Episcopal Church. From this contact with the source of eternal church truth, the consciousness of catholicity came to life more powerfully in the ideas of the Episcopal Church, and since that time we have seen how this catholic principle is constantly strengthening and growing stronger in this American church. To be convinced of this, it is enough to carefully follow the spiritual periodicals in the theological literature of this church. The best and main exponent of her theological thought is a magazine called “Review of the American Church,” 14 and this magazine in recent years has provided very rich material for judging the actual state and direction of theological thought in the Episcopal Church. Here we see a whole series of articles that deeply take into account the religious essence of the church, subject it to careful critical examination, evaluate it from the point of view of higher principles, and at the same time opinions are constantly expressed that have in mind the transformation of the essential points of the doctrine with a view to bringing it into greater harmony with the doctrine of the ancient undivided or catholic church. It is well known that Protestantism, rebelling against the crudely sensual Roman Catholic teaching on purgatory, which, as we know, gave rise to numerous abuses, rejected along with it even the ancient church teaching on prayers for the dead. Voices are now being raised in the Episcopal Church for the restoration of this doctrine, and its truth is demonstrated on the basis of historical and dogmatic data in a very detailed article 15 on this subject in the said journal. Voices are also being raised for the restoration of the ancient custom of fasting before communion, and several articles are also devoted to this subject, and this is all the more remarkable since the said custom is based more on the universal tradition and, as is known, denied by Protestantism, than on the letter of the Holy Scripture. Scriptures. 16 At the same time, even voices are rising in favor of recognizing fasting in general in the sense of an important benefit in religious and moral life, and although the argumentation in this regard is apparently vague and does not have a proper stronghold in consciousness, the very fact of raising this issue is no longer without important significance 17 . Finally, theological thought is not limited to these individual points of doctrine. She subjects to critical examination the most confessional symbol of the Episcopal Church, from which all the particulars of the doctrine logically flow. This main symbol for the Episcopal Church is the so-called "XXXIX members of the religion", which have the meaning of the main symbolic book of Anglicanism and Episcopalism. And we must honor the high self-sacrifice of American theologians when, finding some contradiction between this symbol and the reviving idea of ​​catholicity, they do not resort to dialectical twists of thought in order to agree on the discordant, but courageously pose a frank question; Isn't it time to reconsider this symbolic document? 18 This question, as naturally, aroused objections and led to theological polemics, but the fatal word was said, and it constitutes an important sign of the times, in the sense we are considering. But this transformative movement towards the restoration of the catholic principle in the Episcopal Church is not limited only to the field of theoretical theological thought. No, next to this work of thought, the life itself and the general consciousness of the church go in the same direction, as far as it is expressed in its highest representatives - bishops and periodic councils, the so-called “general conventions”. The year before last, in the bowels of this church, a fact took place that constitutes an important step towards the restoration of the customs of the ancient church, rejected by Protestantism. Already Dr. Ewer pointed out that Protestantism sins against those sublime natures who burn with love for solitude far from the vain world - alone with God, precisely because it denies monasticism. This idea has now found practical implementation. One young man from the Episcopal clergy about two years ago decided to destroy with his own experience this Protestant barrier on the path to hermitage and took monastic vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience. And a wonderful thing - this anti-Protestant step met him with complete sympathy from the highly respected Bishop of New York Potter in the church, who personally performed the rite of tonsure with appropriate solemnity and responded with dignity to all objections to this innovation. To objections from those who saw in this act a hateful tendency of Roman Catholicism, he responded by pointing out that monasticism is not a Roman Catholic institution, but is a universal institution and stems from the deep needs of the human spirit. 19 But of incomparably even deeper significance in this regard is the main question that now occupies the American Episcopal Church, namely the question of the transformation of its liturgy. This question now occupies all the best minds of the church and many articles and writings are devoted to it. It should be noted that the liturgy represents the actual testimony of church doctrine; it most clearly and fully reflects the inner meaning of the religious system. This is proven with striking clarity by the fate of the Anglican liturgy, which was completely transferred to America. Borrowed from the Roman Church, the Anglican liturgy has undergone a gradual process of modification since the Reformation; with the penetration of extreme Protestant principles into the Anglican Church, it became more and more Protestantized and finally reached its present form, which, both in England and especially in America, represents some kind of pitiful fragments of the ancient liturgy, devoid of the vital nerve of liturgical worship. And so, with the revival of Catholic self-awareness, a strong movement began in America towards transformation and liturgy with the goal of restoring it in its ancient original form. At the head of this movement was Bishop Jung of Florida, known for his famous conversation with Philaret of Moscow on the issue of uniting churches, and he, as chairman of the committee formed for this purpose, published two extensive articles in which he expressed many remarkable thoughts that were striking in the depth and strength of Catholic self-awareness. 20 In his proof of the need for a transformation of the episcopal liturgy on broader catholic principles, the venerable bishop proceeds from the deep thought that religion and the church must be in close harmony with the inner spirit of the people. Pointing out that the Anglican liturgy bears the imprint of the Anglo-Saxon spirit, he says that new conditions are emerging in America that require special adaptations. “As Americans,” he says, we must take into account the significant modification of our Anglican civilization, which has already begun and is likely to continue in the future due to the enormous and ever-increasing influx of immigrants to our shores from almost all the nationalities of the world. When these alien elements are embodied in a common political organism and are so assimilated into our national life that they form a homogeneous people with us, then the result will be a complete, multifaceted nationality. not similar to its predecessor, and will require both for its civil and religious life much that is completely different from what could satisfy the pure English type of civilization" 21 . From this point of view, the bishop examines in detail the main liturgical book of the Church of England, the famous Common Prayer Book, points out its shortcomings, compares the Anglican liturgy with the great liturgies of the ancient church, and above all with the liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and comes to the conviction that the Anglican liturgy needs to be reformed precisely in the spirit of the great liturgical models of antiquity. Such an authoritative voice naturally could not pass without a trace. And indeed the question of transforming the liturgy became a burning issue of the time, and when it was proposed for consideration by the general convention of 1883, many of the bishop’s thoughts found general acceptance. The missal underwent a thorough revision, precisely in the spirit of the principles indicated by Bishop Jung, and a very broad plan of transformation was drawn up, which should be subject to final consideration by the following general conventions. The question is obviously of extreme importance, and in view of this one cannot but sincerely regret that the leader of this significant movement himself was not destined to live to see the final decision of the matter: he died suddenly at the end of 1885. But he died with the confidence that his thoughts found a lively response in all the best representatives of the Episcopal Church and in general the General Convention, which, in the same spirit of restoring catholicity in the church, restored, among other things, the “feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord,” and decided to celebrate it on August 6, following the example of the ancient universal church. Finally, and externally, the maturing spirit of the Catholic self-consciousness of the Episcopal Church found eloquent expression in the fact that at the same convention the question was raised as to whether it was not time to change the very name of the “Protestant Episcopal Church,” and precisely whether it was not time to strike out the word “Protestant,” since it no longer corresponded to the more internal spirit of the American Church. This question also has not yet received its final solution, but all signs show that the time for its positive solution is not far off. We have focused primarily on considering the process of maturation of Catholic self-consciousness in the Episcopal Church, as representing more striking facts in this regard. But certain features of this same movement can be noticed in other communities, and mainly it manifested itself in the fact that in these communities the search for more solid church principles began with renewed vigor, and the eyes of many turned to the Episcopal Church, as standing at the head of this significant movement. As can be judged by the latest news, in the American religious world a movement towards church unification is rising with renewed vigor, a movement, in all its details, reminiscent of the great movement that marked the 60s and which had as its subsequent result the relationship of the Episcopal Church with the Orthodox East. An outward sign of this movement is the fact that every year there is an increasing number of converts from different communities and sects to the Episcopal Church, where they seek final peace - apparently the same phenomenon that was noticed during the former movement. But the current movement, identical in nature to the previous one, receives even more intensity as a result of some new conditions introduced into the religious and moral life of the American people. The previous movement came out of the internal desire for church unity in the form of more friendly and successful work in the field of God; now there is also a feeling of self-defense against two increasingly threatening hostile forces. The fact is that over the past decades, on the one hand, Roman Catholicism has become extremely intensified and expanded, with the open intention of conquering the entire American continent, and on the other hand, continuous and every year increasing emigration from the Old World has brought to America such a mass of skeptical, irreligious and downright anti-religious elements that unbelief is quickly beginning to develop in some segments of the population and threatens to infect with its corrupting breath the spiritual life of the American people. And it was the fear of these enemies and the desire to unite in common efforts to successfully fight them that served as the strongest incentive to resume the movement towards church unification. Since the conditions were now much more developed by previous work, this movement was not slow to express itself in a remarkable hitherto unprecedented phenomenon, namely the “congress of churches.” This remarkable phenomenon passed completely unnoticed in our press, and yet it made a tremendous impression in America and served as an important expression of the religious self-consciousness to which the American people had reached. The “Congress of Churches” took place in the spring of the year before last (1884). It was convened at the initiative of the Episcopal Church and had as its goal a joint clarification of the urgent needs of the religious and moral life of the country. And it is remarkable that representatives of all communities and sects responded to the idea of ​​convening such a congress, even those who had hitherto not recognized the possibility of any solidarity with others. Representatives from all communities truly gathered at this congress and with remarkable unanimity expressed the desire that animated everyone - to finally take measures to eliminate the evil of sectarian fragmentation in America. At the congress, many speeches were made, many abstracts were read by persons of all kinds of church-religious opinions and religious shades, and thanks to such a fraternal-Christian exchange of thoughts, so unlike the petty and hostile polemics that had hitherto characterized relations between different religious communities, the idea of church unity received new encouragement in the best representatives of religious and theological thought and new support in its further development. “The success of the Congress of Churches,” said one body of the Episcopal Church, “22 was unexpected and almost unprecedented. Until now it was impossible to say how widespread the desire for Christian unity was among different faiths. "Congress has lived up to the wildest expectations and discovered in the minds and hearts of the people a deeper sense of desire to get rid of the evils of our divided Christianity in America than could have been imagined." And this is how we see here a new phase into which the church-religious identity of the American people has entered. This phenomenon is still so new that it is impossible to draw any more or less definite conclusions, but there is no doubt that this phenomenon is an eloquent protest against the evils of Christian fragmentation on the basis of religious fermentation and sectarian Protestantism, and here the maturing triumph of the Catholic self-consciousness of the American people appears in all its splendor. This fact becomes even more remarkable in view of the impression this “congress of churches” made on society. By the way, he was subjected to lively discussion in society and the press, and under his influence, opinions undoubtedly began to be expressed that could have the greatest significance if applied to life. Thus, one professor of the Presbyterian College, discussing the issues that were unraveling at the “congress of churches” and seeking a common ground on which all American communities could merge into one integral church body, expressed the previously unthinkable opinion that such a ground could serve as a transformed liturgy of the Episcopal Church. And this opinion was expressed on the pages of the most widespread magazine in America, Century, which has hundreds of thousands of readers and therefore has enormous influence on society. 23 And since the liturgy of the Episcopal Church is now being transformed, and is being transformed in terms of its agreement with the great examples of liturgical worship of the ancient church, and therefore in the spirit of universal Orthodoxy, this fact can eloquently speak for itself, and casts a highly significant shadow on the future destinies of church-religious life in the great trans-Atlantic republic. Thus we see how in a country where Protestantism had full opportunity and freedom to develop and show its religious essence in all its splendor and where religious individualism, so to speak, set up a throne for itself - how in this country the people, who fled from the Old World to the unknown wilds of the New World mainly for the free development of their Protestant beliefs, finally came to the sad conviction that Protestantism, as a religious system, cannot satisfy the deepest needs of the human spirit, cannot fully satisfy the needs of religious and moral life. In the face of these great demands, its internal inconsistency is completely revealed, since, according to its very basic principle, it can only destroy and fragment, but not. create and unite. Only a church that has a creative spirit and strong ecclesiastical authority can satisfy these demands, but obviously such a church must be sought outside of Protestantism. And in view of this grandiose historical experience, which has personally proven the decisive inconsistency of Protestantism, in what a pitiful light appear our fashionable preachers and philosophical writers, who are trying to introduce the corrosive poison of religious individualism into the healthy church-religious consciousness of our people, want to deprive them of the greatest benefit that they have in the high authority of the church, and give everyone a heavy and dangerous advantage on their own, under a painful burden depressing doubt and despair, to seek an answer to the terrible question: “What is my faith?” ... For such wise theologians, there are obviously no lessons from history: they are deaf to its most formidable warnings. But they are preparing for themselves in the future a terrible and inexorable judgment of this history that they do not recognize. See “Christ. Reading,” the last two books for 1886: “The modern West in religious and moral terms.” Roman Catholicism in America, ch. V I I – X , pp. 1 1 6 – 1 9 6 ; "Wanderer", March 1882; Religion in America, ch. “Freedom of religions. conscience in America." The above argument has become, so to speak, a common place in judicial practice in America in cases of this kind, and we recently met it almost verbatim in the indictment of an American prosecutor against the Mormons (Churchman, March 27, 1886, p. 340). Meanwhile, for this very argumentation, clearly proving the internal union of religion and state, in America. “Bulletin of Europe” proclaimed us “clerics” (act. 1881 in the bibliography. Articles about our book “Religion in America”). However, we note, not without pleasure, that the view we have outlined has finally penetrated the pages of secular magazines. The January book of the Observer for this year contains an article by L. Kotlyarovsky: “Freedom of conscience in America,” and in it the author completely repeats our view, moreover, using in support of it mainly the acts collected in our writings about America. Scholar's Lesson Puper, a monthly publication containing four Sunday lessons per issue. The American Sunday-School Union. Young Men's Christian Association. Hist. Sketch of the Young Men's Christian Associations, N. Y. I860, p. 5. The N.Y. Society for the Suppression of Vice. The Temperance Societies. When this lecture had already been read, we came across a fact in the Selsky Vestnik that represents such a striking example of the contrast presented in this regard by the simple Russian peasant that we find it worthwhile to cite it here as proof of how much more common patriotic sense can be in the simple soul of a peasant than in the soul of a highly enlightened “intellectual”. Here is this Fact: “In the town of Khabnom, Radomysl district, Kyiv province, in the first week of Lent, the local priest Fr. John was invited to give a farewell message to the childless peasant Semyon Kovalev, an exemplary owner known for his frugality, who was dying of consumption. After parting words, the patient expressed a desire that all his property, consisting of a house with an estate and three and a half acres of arable and hay land, after his death, pass into the eternal possession of the local public school, for the construction of which he donates 300 rubles... and the other 300 rubles. donates to be deposited in the State Bank in perpetuity, so that the interest goes to help homeless children. If for some reason the authorities did not allow the establishment of a school in the estate he donated, in such cases he donates a special 1,100 rubles, so that the money would be deposited in the State Bank and the interest would be used to provide benefits to poor children attending a public school. The patient wished that, in the presence of a priest and several peasants invited for this purpose, a spiritual will be drawn up and approved by the volost authorities, which was done on February 24th. Then the patient expressed a desire that during his lifetime they would begin to transport material to his estate to build a school, so that he could see it with his own eyes from his bed. The peasants, fulfilling the will of the donor, began to transport timber to the future school and store it in the estate of the dying Kovalev.” Sat down. Vestn. No. 14–15, p. 162. See "Russian Vedas." No. 327, 1885 and Letter from America W. N. McGahan. See .Christ. Reading" for 1881 and 1882, our articles under the title: "Relations of the American Episcopal Church with the Orthodox East on the issue of the union of churches." The American. Church Review. See the May book of 1883 Art. Prayers for the Departed. Articles under the title Fasting Communion in the January, March and October 1884 issues. March 1883 Art. The physical effects of religious fasting upon health. August 1863: Has, the Time come to revise the Thirty-NainArticles? Several articles appeared in defense of monasticism, from which one can point to a detailed article in the April issue of the title. magazine for 1885, pp. 498 – 514, See also July of the same year. Two articles in Amer. Ch. Rev. under the general title: Liturgical Enrichment, Oct. 1882 and February, 1883. Decree. Art. in the department 1883 edition, p.2. We cannot hide our natural pleasure that here an authoritative theologian expresses the same thoughts that you expressed with almost literal accuracy a year and a half earlier in our essay on Roman Catholicism in America.” There we said the following: “The idea of ​​religious unity is vaguely wandering in the minds of the American people, and they are looking for a church that, alien to one-sidedness, could, with its catholic comprehensiveness, satisfy its many-sided needs. The American people are multifaceted by their very composition. It was formed and is still being formed from many different nationalities, which annually flow into its body through the flow of immigration. It includes not only all kinds of peoples of the European continent, but also native, primitive, American tribes, African blacks and Asian Mongols. All this diverse mass is little by little processed into one people, forming one body and one spirit. The fusion of such diverse elements in the American character obviously cannot lead to one-sidedness. Such a nature can only be comprehensive, with a balance of forces in both physical and spiritual nature. Hence, in religious terms, only such a church can satisfy him, which is as many-sided in its catholicity as the people themselves are many-sided.” – Since this very thought underlies our view of the church-religious life of the American people, its repetition by such an expert on this life as the late Bishop Freeman Young serves for us as a flattering guarantee of the correctness of our view of the subject. See Rom. Catholicism in America,” pp. 17 and 1 8; also – “Religion in America”, pp. 1 9 The Churchman, May 23, 1885, p. 563. The Century, November 1885, article by Prof. Shield. This article made a huge impression and caused numerous comments and responses from theologians of various churches and communities. The latter, by the way, also appeared on the pages of the same magazine in the form of “open letters.” Such were the responses in the February 1886 journal from Episcopal theologians, in the March from the Presbyterian theologians, and in the July from the Congregational theologians. All these statements express one dominant feeling - the desire to get rid of the sectarian fragmentation corroding the religious and moral life in America and to achieve unity, although at the same time naturally different, widely divergent views are expressed both on the methods of achieving this unity and on the very nature of it. You might be interested in: