The Irvingite sect, or, as it names itself, “The Catholic Apostolic Church,” can be traced back to a meeting called by Henry Drummond, an eminent banker of London, at the beginning of Advent in 1826. Drummond was then a loyal member of the Church of England and had no suspicion that his invitation to twenty “students of prophecy” for eight days of conference at his suburban estate was to lead to the establishment of a new dissenting body with himself as one of its chief ministers. Yet from this informal beginning there germinated an international church, which, in its authoritarianism, sacerdotalism, sacramentalism, and ritualism, ran in close parallel with the Catholic development within Anglicanism.

Some forty years ago, Frederic J. Turner, the eminent American historian, called attention to the fact that the religious life of the frontier has not been sufficiently investigated. Since then, much important work in this field has been done. One aspect of the religious life of the frontier, however, has been almost entirely neglected, that of Swedenborgianism, or, as followers of the Swedish prophet prefer to say, that of the New Church. Emanuel Swedenborg was born in Stockholm in 1688. Since we are approaching the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of his birth, now is an opportune time to investigate a hitherto neglected influence, very potent on the American frontier during the nineteenth century.

In dealing with a subject of such a general character, I am well aware of the limitations of the undertaking. It is not possible to define the nature of Protestantism in such a manner as to establish certain principles to which all its historical expressions must or do conform. I accept the statement of Wilhelm Dilthey which reads as follows:

The religions which appear within a developed civilization have common features. They lift the human consciousness to a point at which, by its connection with divinity and the invisible, it renders itself independent from the world. Hence it is the aim of these religions to overcome the contradictions and repressions of life (Hemmungen) by an inner connection with God. Beatitude signifies the developing total state of mind in which all single emotions arising from participation in the world are resolved. Hence religion is neither a cult nor a dogma nor a mode of action but the total life context of a person in which this aim has been attained. From this there result significant consequences for the historian. No religion or communion can be represented by a principle from which cult, dogma, and morality can be derived. The endless theological debates about a principle of Christianity, of Reformed religiousness, of the Lutheran or Reformed church, are without object. This life context cannot even be wholly analysed. As in every form of life, there remains something unanalysable also in every form of religiousness. Just therein religion is, like art; superior to scientific knowledge. One cannot state in one sentence the essence of Christianity. Every attempt of such a sort is historical metaphysics. Knowledge of Christianity is the analysis of the Christian religiousness in individual Christians and in society.

Although the exact date is not known, Robert Browne was born about the year 1550 at Tolethorpe Hall, which is the Manor House of Little Casterfon, a Rutlandshire village a few miles from Stamford. The house appears to have been owned by the Browne family since 1377, when it was bought by John Browne, alderman of Stamford (1374–6, -7) and “wool-merchant engaged in the staple of Calais.” A son of this original owner was named John, and also served as alderman. So, in turn, did his son John, who held he office three times. This third John Browne began the much needed work of restoring All Saints Church in Stamford, a fine building of Norman type which had suffered severe damage in the War of the Roses. The restoration was carried on and completed by his two sons, John and William, who also continued the family tradition of public service: John was alderman of Stamford in 1448, 1453, 1462; William was several times alderman as well as sheriff of Rutland and Lincoln counties, and founder in 1484 of Browne Hospital, the Bede House of Stamford, which still stands opposite the Corn Market.

The Restoration of 1660 restored not only the Stuart dynasty but the Anglican church. Both were mistakes of the first magnitude, partiqilarly the restoration of the Established church because it lasted longer. James II's unparalleled Unwisdom brought the Revolution of 1688 quickly and unanimously. No archbishop has to date so conducted himself as to bring a 1688 to Anglicanism. Recent discussion relating to the role of the church in the unusual abdication of 1936, and the no less unusual coronation of 1937, testifies to both its strength and its insecurity two hundred and fifty years after the Stuart dynasty, its curious restorer, had descended to pretenders and romance.

Most of the people to whom the missionaries of the American Home Missionary Society ministered in the South were leading the rugged lives of frontiersmen, and frontier life is never easy. The missionaries themselves, though usually far above the average frontiersman in educational achievements, were not exempt from the hardships and privations of the frontier. Indeed the very nature of their tasks often made them feel the harshness of their environment even more keenly than did the average settler. In the maze of theological problems, interdenominational conflicts, slavery agitation, and the routine duties of a missionary, one easily loses sight of the fact that the principals involved in all these enterprises were self-sacrificing men of high ambition. Frequently they were men with families, from the more thickly settled North. The purpose of this essay is to call attention to the human side of the missionary enterprise, the suffering entailed by the lack of material possessions, by the lack of books, by sickness, and sometimes by physical violence at the hands of fellow-men. The hardships to which the missionaries were subjected changed progressively with the shifting Southern frontiers.

An important development in the life of the church of Africa during the last decade of the fourth century and the first quarter of the fifth century was the rise of monasticism, first instituted, inspired, and directed by Saint Augustine. A lively consciousness of sin and the comparison of his sensual life with the career of several exponents of monachism had resulted at the time of his conversion in a strong ascetic reaction to his former mode of thought and life. In succeeding years the saintly bishop lost none of the ardor for asceticism which marked his conversion, largely because his active imagination continued to dwell on his earlier life and to magnify his former sins and shortcomings out of all proportion, so that he was ever driven to make atonement by “newness of life.” Divorcing himself entirely from his former career, Saint Augustine with some of his friends returned to his birthplace, Thagaste in Numidia, and there he founded on his own lands the first African monastery, and endowed it with that portion of his patrimony which he had not yet given to other charities. For three years he dwelt there “with those who had also consecrated themselves to God, in fastings and prayers and good works, meditating day and night in the law of the Lord.” Soon after he had been ordained priest under compulsion at Hippo in 391, Saint Augustine founded there a second monastery for men on property provided by the aged Bishop Valerius.

Anabaptism, the bête noire of confessional Protestantism, cursed at least once in most sixteenth century confessions of faith from Augsburg and Trent on, classified under the Deformation of the Reformation by Kurtz, and reconsidered by Troeltsch, is now interpreted by Schuster and Franke as the third primary type of Reformation Protestantism. Quiescent Protestantism, otherwise known as Lutheranism, and militant Protestantism, otherwise know as Calvinism, are at present represented as walking down the Reformation board-walk with radical Anabaptism.

The death of Pope Anastasius II in 498 precipitated a bitter controversy in Rome and throughout Italy. Ostensibly the causes went back to the conflict over the ratification of the Henotikon, and the struggle between the Emperor Anastasius and Pope Gelasius I. But this was not the only line of demarcation, and it is the other elements entering in that make the situation difficult to define.

The condemnation of Origen is one of the saddest episodes in the history of the Christian church. The breadth of his thought, the keenness of his genius and the wide sympathy of his religion, contrast vividly with the narrow obscurantism of his monkish detractors. It is significant that the final defeat of Origen and the closing of the philosophic schools of Athens belong to the same era. It is as if a curtain were then drawn upon the intellectual freedom of the East, and along with certain garbled texts from his works all that was fine and liberal and mature in the faith and thought of Origen had been condemned. He who had striven for a religion truly catholic and had contended that all things were the church's heritage and all things were Christ's, was cast out of the church with imprecations of intolerance and fanaticism. The long controversies over Origen that reach their climax under Justinian mark the passing of much that was noble and enlightened in the early tradition of Greek Christianity.

It is a matter of common knowledge that at the beginning of the Christian church the Christians were persecuted by the Jews. Later the Jews were persecuted by the Christians. Throughout the Middle Ages the hatred between the two increased. Finally the Jews were banished from England, Spain, France, and other states of Europe until they were allowed to dwell only in parts of Italy, Germany, and Poland. When the Reformation began, the Protestants were faced by many problems in their attempts to organize a purified church. One of these problems was whether Jews should be allowed to live among Christians. The first of the leading Reformers to deal systematically with this problem was Martin Bucer of Strasbourg.

Professional Schools in the United States, whether of medicine, law, engineering, or theology, are of relatively recent orgin. It is a matter of interest that the ministry was the first profession in America for which a technical and standardized training was provided. While the first law school in America was founded in the same year as the oldest theological seminary (1784), the courses were loosely organized and there was no definitely prescribed amount of work required of graduation and no academic requirement for the practice of law. In all the institutions where there were law departments or law schools, even as late as the middle of the last century, the law students were considered as distinctly inferior to the regular college students.

The record of Governor William Bradford, in his own hand, presenting the story of the founders of Plymouth from 1606–1646, originally bore only the title, “Of Plimoth Plantation.” Now it is referred to as the “History of Plymouth Plantation,” or “The Bradford History,” or “The Bradford Manuscript.” This important document has had an eventful career. For many years it was lost, and then under strange circumstances it was found not in some hidden place in this country but in England. It is the purpose of this paper to unfold the steps in that discovery, and to follow the events which led finally to the return of the valuable holograph to the United States.

The operation of the Plan of Union in Ohio, while less spectacular in its effects than in New York, was equally important, and needs to be thoroughly understood by the student of the pioneer development of either Presbyterianism or Congregationalism in Ohio.

It is not strange if in New York Congregational writers regarded the Plan as a misfortune, since all Congregational associations dissolved or became absorbed in the Presbyterian system. Yet in Ohio, too, where Congregationalism was more successful in surviving its influence, the reader of the papers of the Ohio Church History Society, a Congregational group, runs across such expressions as “those dark days of the prevalence of the Plan of Union,” “the unclean thing,” and descriptions of what seemed to them an unmixed calamity.