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 HUGUENOTS

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HUGUENOTS

common to French Protestants, namely, respect for the Bible and the liturgies, and faith in historical and supernatural Christianity. But as the assembly refused to re-establish a clear and positive profession of faith, the pastors Frederic Monod, Amal, and Cambon left the official Church, and issued an appeal to all the independent churches which had been formed by the labours of isolated evangelists. In 1849 they held a synod, in which thirteen of these already formed churches and eighteen which were in process of formation were represented, voted a pro- fession of faith, and established the "Union of the Free Evangelical Churches of France" (Union des ^lises evangeliques libres de France).

All these divisions made a civil reorganization of the churches desirable; it was effected by a decree of Louis Napoleon, who was then President of the Re- public. This decree reconstituted the parishes, plac- ing them under a presbyterial council of pastors and elders. At the head of the hierarchy so constituted was a central council, the members of which were appointed by the Government; its function was merely to represent the churches in their relations with the head of the State, without possessing any religious or disciplinary authority. The Lutheran churches were placed under the authority of the Superior Consistoiy and of a Directory. The only subsequent modification in the status of these churches resultetl from the Prussian annexation, after the War of 1870, of the Alsatian territories, where there were a great many Protestants; the Lutheran churches by this event lost two-thirds of their membership, and their faculty of theology had to be transferred from Strasburg to Paris, where it augmented the strength of the Liberal section. The gulf between the two parties still continued to widen. The Orthodox vainly endeavoured, by abandoning the formulte of the old theology, and by rejecting all but the great facts and essential doctrines of Christianity, to maintain their position; the Liberals, following the lead of the "Revue de Strasbourg", displayed an ever greater readiness to welcome the most radical conclusions of German rationalistic criticism, partic- ularly those of the Tubingen School. The authority of Holy Scripture, the Divinity of Christ, the idea of the Redemption, of miracles, of the supernatural, were successively abandoned. M. Pecaut, a represen- tative of this tendency, even wrote in 1859 a book (Le Christ et la conscience) in which he called in question the moral perfection and holiness of Christ. Others — and among them pastors such as Athanase Coquerel the Younger, Albert Reville, and Paschoud — did not conceal their sympathy for Renan's "Vie de Jdsus". The two last named of these, indeed, were deprived of their churches by the council; they of course as- serted in defence of their ideas — as, for that matter, did all the liberals — that they had only used the right of free in<(uiry — the right which constitutes the whole of Protestantism, since the Reformation was based on the right of every man to interpret the Scriptures according to his own lights. Their op- ponents replied that, if this were so, the Church was impossible; that a common worship presupposes common lioliefs. This question brought on many lively discussions between the representatives of the two tendencies in the Press, at the conferences, and in the elections for the presl>yterial coimcils. To re- store peace, a general synod had to be convoked with the consent of the (lOvernment in Jvme, 1872. Here the orthodox had a majority; a profession of faith was carried by sixty-one votes to forty-five, and sulv .scription to it was made obligatory upon all the younger pastors. This decision became an insur- mountable barrier between the two parties. The Liberals, not content with repudiating the notion of any obligatory confession of faith, refused, so long as it was maintained, to take any further part in the

synod of 1872, and have also abstained from partici- pating in any of the general synods, which have been held about every three years since 1879, at Paris, Nantes, Sedan, Auduze and elsewhere, and from which the orthodox party have taken the name of "the Synodal Church". For all that, the Liberals had no intention of breaking with the organization recognized by the State. Numerous attempts have been made in the last thirty years, to bring about an understanding between the two parties, but have not succeeded in establishing doctrinal unity. The Separation seems calculated rather to increase the divisions, and already a third party has been formed by the fusion at Jarnac (1 October, 1906) of 65 Lib- eral churches and 40 .Synodal under the name of the " Union des Eglises R<5formees".

Divided among themselves on doctrinal questions, the Protestants have by no means lost their solidarity in regard to external activities. The movement of spiritual renovation which followed the Napoleonic wars produced among them various propagandist, educational, and benevolent enterprises, such as the "Soci^t^ biblique" (1819), the "Soci^t6 des trait^s religieux" (1861), the "Societ(des missions (Svan- geliques de Paris" (1824), the Society for the Promo- tion of Primary Instruction among Protestants (1829), the Institution of Deaconesses (1841), the agricul- tural colony of Sainte-Toy (1842), and divers or- phanages, homes for neglected children, and primary schools. Of these last, the greater number (about 2000) have been closed since 1882. The missionary activity of the French Protestants has been chiefly exerted through the " Soci(5td des missions (Svangeliques de Paris", at Bassoutos (South Africa), where they count at the present time 1 5,000 adherents, wit h schools and a printing press; in Madagascar, where a large number of schools are dependent on them (117 schools, according to statistics for 1908, with 7500 pupils); in Senegal, in French Congo, in Zambesi, Tahiti, and New ('aledonia. Some sixty missionaries arc at work on these missions, and in late years they have received an annual grant amounting to about 320,000 dollars. At home their propaganda is ear- ned on chiefly among the Catholic population by the "Soci^t6 centrale protestante dY'vang^lisation ", with a budget of 90,000 dollars per annum; by the "So- ci6t6 ^vang^lique de France ", which in some years has received as much as 24,000 dollars; by the "Mission populaire evang^'-lique " (Mac.Vll) without, however, any appreciable success.

Journalistic enterprise has not been overlooked. The first Protestant periodical, the "Archives du christianisme", was founded in 1818; then came the ".\nnales protestantes" in 1820, the "Melanges de la religion" in the same year, the "Revue protestante" and the "Lien" in 1.S41, the "Evang^liste" in 1837, the " Esperance " in 1 8:is, the "Revue dp Strasbourg " in 1859, the "Revue theologique ", the "Protestant", the "Vie Nouvelle ", the "Revue clir<''tienne", and the "Signal", a political journal. Only the best-known periodicals are mentioned here; most of them have disappeared; many are, or have been, the organs of particular sections of the Protestants. There must still be, according to the "Agenda, annuaire protes- tant", more than 150 in existence, but the majority have only a restricted circulation, and, excepting the "Bulletin historique et litteraire de la .soci^t6 de I'histoire du protestantisme frangais" (1852), are practically without readers outside of the Protestant world.

At present Protestantism counts about 650,000 ad- herents in France— 560,000 R(^form<''s, 80,000 Luth- erans, and 10,000 independents — that is a little less than one-sixtieth of the population. This seemingly negligible minority has, as every one admits, made for itself in politics and in the executive government a place out of all proportion to its numerical strength.