LAST OF THE POLISH BRETHREN.

93

rivalry, or the welcome of many among them to the new colonies of America; but, for our poor heretics, counted at most by tens and not by hundreds of thousands, the narrow integrity of conscience, which was their one heroic virtue, cut them off from the fellow-feeling of Catholic and Protestant alike. Some found generous welcome over the border, in Transylvania. Some, by the queen's bounty, were settled in Silesia. Some sought refuge in Holland, still famous for its splendid defense of religious independence; but here they were received churlishly and grudgingly, out of old Anabaptist memories, and were pushed back, as far as might be, to the less inhospitable regions farther east. Their last appeal, which we have listened to, gained them generous reception in Brandenburg and Prussia; and here we may consider to have been the home of such poor remnants as still clung to the old name and brotherhood. In 1730 eleven families of them still survived. As late as 1838, in answer to a friendly letter of inquiry, two old men-by name Morssten and Schlichting -were reported as still living in eastern Prussia, who called themselves Socinians. With them, we may suppose, passed away the last fragment of what, for one eventful century, had borne honorable part in the brilliant commonwealth of Poland.

Bayle, writing about 1690, when the story of their exile was still fresh, makes the following comment: “There are few who are not persuaded that it [the Unitarian opinion] has extended in obscurity, and spread more widely day by day; and it is thought that, as things now are, Europe would be soon surprised at finding itself Socinian if powerful princes should embrace this heresy, or if they should only enact that its profession should be relieved of the temporal disabilities it labors under. This is the opinion of many persons; and the opinion perplexes and alarms

them." It is a comment natural to a freethinker, recoiling from some recent horror of intolerance, like the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But, in itself, it is shallow and improbable. The Unitarian doctrine is not a form of thought, and the Socinians were not a body of men, likely to make a deep impression upon a time of excessive bigotry or of virulent controversy. These men were honest, learned, pious, faithful to their light. They deserve their share of honor-no small share. But their thin rationalizing, not backed by any large intelligent criticism, was far enough from meeting the deeper claims of the religious life. We have seen how their narrow interpretation, their incorrigible pedantry, held them from the broader ranges of the more vigorous life that lay within their reach.

A conspicuous defeat has its reasons, which should be sought in history. Socinus began by breaking rather violently with the bolder and equally pious rationalism of his natural allies in Transylvania. His Polish adherents defeated the hope of religious union (if such a thing were possible) by incessantly pressing the minute points of likeness, or points of difference, that lay between them and more orthodox Reformers. It was the same to the last. The pathetic and eloquent appeal of Przypkowski, just quoted, is immediately followed by a formal argument to show, not the nobility of a true religious freedom, but that the Socinian creed was, after all, not so very heretical; not nearly so heretical, in fact, as some with which it had been confounded, particularly the "Judaizing" opinions of Francis David and his like. These are melancholy weaknesses. But they are, as we recollect, the weaknesses of the best and most intelligent men of their day. They show how far it was from possible, then, that the first principles of a scientific theology should be understood.

1

THE "RACOVIAN CATECHISM."

95 The Polish Brethren must needs prove the accuracy of their opinion, not content with simple honesty of thought.

The Socinian opinion as to controverted points of doctrine has been sufficiently shown elsewhere. Its masterpiece of exposition, the "Racovian Catechism," well deserves the reputation it gained. Wholly apart from the value of its theology, the form of its argument gives it an educational value distinctly superior to that of any similar work of the school to which it is nearest allied. Its bits of exegesis, turning on the exact meaning of Scripture terms, are often vivid and suggestive. Its treatment of practical ethics, in the light of Bible precepts, is singularly wise and clear: take, for example, the topic of Usury (p. 237), so often treated by religionists with mere ignorant tirade; while the breadth of plan and the logical method and completeness-beginning with the true value of the Scriptures, and ending by an answer to the question, What is the Invisible Church of Christ ?-make it, to this day, a treatise well worth study. The well-taught, sober, rational, and devout Unitarianism, which accepted this for a century or more as its best manual of faith, held to it by a wise and fortunate choice. It cannot be said to have been really superseded until the coming in of that revolution in religious thought implied in what we call "the higher criticism" of our own day.

The Socinians have been thus generously judged by Archbishop Tillotson, an opponent of their theology, who wrote, about 1690: "I must own that generally they are a pattern of the fair way of disputing and of debating matters of religion, without heat and unseemly reflections upon their adversaries. They generally argue matters with that temper and gravity, with that freedom from passion and transport, which becomes a serious and weighty argument; and for the most part they reason closely and

clearly, with extraordinary guard and caution, with great dexterity and decency, and yet with smartness and subtlety enough, with a very gentle heat, and few hard words— virtues to be praised wherever they are found: yea, even in an enemy, and very worthy our imitation. In a word, they are the strongest managers of a weak cause, and which is ill-founded at the bottom, that perhaps ever yet meddled with controversy. Insomuch that some of the Protestant and the generality of the popish writers, and even of the Jesuits themselves, who pretend to all the reason and subtlety in the world, are in comparison of them but mere scolds and bunglers. Upon the whole matter they have but one, this great, defect, that they want a good cause and truth on their side, which if they had, they have reason and wit and temper to defend it." 1

1 Quoted by Krasinski, vol. ii., p. 407.

CHAPTER V.

TRANSYLVANIA.

THE oldest existing group of Unitarian churches is that in Transylvania, the extreme easterly portion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its history as an organized body dates from 1568, when the Unitarian belief was formally recognized as one of the four legal "religions" of that province the Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist), and Unitarian, whose constitutional rights were reaffirmed at Presburg in 1848. A royal charter, dated 1571, gave to it corporate rights which no political changes have succeeded in annulling; though the attempt has been made, often with excessive cruelty and injustice, here as elsewhere. Its survival has been due partly to the nature of the country and the circumstances of its history, but chiefly to the singular qualities of the unconquerable race of men that hold it. A few words must first be said, accordingly, of the land and people.1

Transylvania is the blunt wedge of rugged country, in outline not unlike a ram's head, abutting upon the old frontier of Turkey, now Roumania. It covers some sixteen thousand square miles, being not quite half as large as the

1 In this sketch I avail myself of some recollections of a visit to Transylvania in 1881, as delegate to the "Supreme Consistory" held at Klausenburg (Kolozsvar). My chief authorities, besides, are the monograph of Professor Rath, "Siebenbürgen" (Heidelberg, 1880); an historical sketch by Joszef Ferencz, found in the "Kleiner Unitarier Spiegel" (Vienna, 1879); narratives of English visitors, Paget, Tayler, Chalmers, and Gordon; that of A. Coquerel fils, in the "Revue Politique et Littéraire" (November, 1873); a review by P. Hunfalfy of Alexis Jakab's "Life of Francis David" (Budapest, 1880); and the personal aid kindly given me by my friends Prof. George Boros, of Kolozsvar, and Mr. John Fretwell.