1. Now and Two Centuries Ago. The First Civilizers of North America. The Native Americans. Features of Their Social and Domestic Life. Their Intellectual, Moral, and Religious State (Cont.)

Subsequent emigration down to the present time has not produced essential changes in this general sentiment. Waves of European emigration, despite their external heterogeneity, rapidly dissolve in the sea of American native population, and over it the spirit of Puritanism continues to hover. The heterogeneity of emigrant elements, submitting to the dominant sentiment, nevertheless exerted its own influence on the state of this sentiment. Left to itself, Puritanism had a strong tendency and could degenerate into a dry, severe, and lifeless system of theological knowledge without vivifying, humane feeling. European emigration, however, through its varied pressure upon it, constantly smoothed its too rigid and angular features and infused into its dry forms vivifying streams of individual religious feeling. From the organic combination and self-limitation of diverse elements is formed the general religious state of the American people. As the mass of the present American population consists of elements of all possible nationalities, settled upon the original foundation of the Anglo-Saxon race, so too the general religious sentiment of this mass presents diverse features merged under a single general cover of Puritanism. Since the chief constituent parts of emigration in recent decades have been German and Irish settlers, these nationalities exert the strongest influence on the cultural and religious character of the country. Hence beneath the general Puritan spirit in the religiosity of the American people especially stand out sharply the features of German religious individualism and Irish religious romanticism. Thanks to the collision of such diverse elements American religiosity could acquire such balanced character as distinguishes the American people in other respects. In it no single one of the three elements constituting it could receive extreme development—neither stern Puritanism, nor extreme German individualism, nor diffuse Celtic romanticism. All three of these elements balance each other. Such equilibrium explains all the essential features in the religious life of the American people. Thanks to the general high level of vital forces in the young American people, their religious feeling also is distinguished by boiling activity and youthful freshness. In it is absent that weariness and dulling of feeling which is observed in the aging nations of Europe and manifests itself as indifference or skepticism. Their religious needs are strong and insistent, and they satisfy them openly and with enthusiasm. German individualism brings personal critical self-consciousness into this feeling and gives faith logical meaningfulness, raising it thereby to the degree of distinct religious self-consciousness. Celtic romanticism gives religious faith a strong aesthetic coloring, raising it thereby above ordinary logically recognized feeling. Finally Puritanism through its strict form limits the extreme development both of German individualism and of Celtic romanticism and thus keeps them within proper bounds, not allowing one-sidedness in development. Hence is explained that remarkable fact that the theological thought of the American people constantly works in the realm of religious truths yet never goes beyond the bounds of faith into the dark region of skepticism and negation; religious feeling is distinguished by extraordinary energy yet rarely passes the bounds of logical meaningfulness; aesthetic feeling plays an important role in religious worship yet never passes into excess of external forms. The seal of moderation lies upon all aspects of their religious life[1].

If the general result of the collision of diverse religious elements was the creation of equilibrium in the general religious sentiment of the American people, on the other hand the organic interaction of such different elements of necessity had to produce constant fluctuation and movement of the religious forces constituting this sentiment. Hence arises that religious ferment which constitutes the most well-known and characteristic feature of American religiosity. Religious forces of the people, finding reconciliation in general sentiment, cannot merge into indifferent unity and therefore the process of ferment and assimilation is the natural and necessary result of the given state. The character of the process of ferment itself is determined by the general state of religiosity. The religious feeling of the American people, as was stated above, is distinguished by strong energy. The people are extraordinarily sensitive to interests of religious truth. They cannot regard with indifference the diverse manifestations of religious truth. They thirst for it in its certain, indisputable, categorical form. Therefore religious ferment in the American people is precisely the search for religious truth. To what extent do the given conditions of their religious life correspond to the national striving to find religious truth?

Americans both by their very origin and by the presently dominant character are a Protestant people. Northern America owes its very settlement to Protestantism, which, fleeing persecution in the Old World, sought freedom of development in the New. Roman Catholicism is still an exotic plant on American soil and is only now beginning to become acclimated to it. Therefore when examining the religious character of the American people in the proper sense we must have in mind Protestantism as their general confessional form, as the basic principle of their very religiosity. Hence the answer to the posed question can be found in the determination of the principles of Protestantism and their relation to the basic character of the American people.

Protestantism, as a religious system, is founded on two chief principles from which all its content is logically developed. As a negation of a system that had brought external church organization to the point of suppressing all personal initiative, it began to teach that the Church is only an invisible society and members can be joined with it only in the most general principle, namely only in faith, so that every believer who believes that he is redeemed by Christ is thereby a member of the Church, whatever his private opinions may be in all other respects. Second, in opposition to the Roman Catholic system which denied to the individual his own participation in determining true doctrine, it rejected the authority of the Church and determined that every person by means of his own reason, on the basis of sacred Scripture alone can and should determine what his religious doctrine and moral code ought to be. The logical and necessary consequence of these principles was that every person was made fully responsible for himself in the matter of religious and moral doctrine. With the rejection of the Church as a visible society and doctrinal authority appeared extreme individualism, in which the entire weight of responsibility fell upon the individual, who by his own forces alone had to build his salvation. Such a system, considered psychologically, corresponds to a national character distinguished by critical independence of thought, preferring his own independent judgment to any public authority. It best corresponds to the intellectual cast of the German people and hence the extreme development in them of Protestant ideas, which at the same time take only weak root among the Romance peoples having the opposite intellectual cast. If salvation indeed depended only on faith alone, human consciousness could readily be reconciled with this basic principle of Protestantism. But faith itself, if it is to have vitality, must of necessity express itself in a certain form, on which in turn depends a more or less true observance of it. By virtue of unlimited individualism, faith had to assume many forms, expressing its content in one way or another. With such diversity there naturally arises the question of which of these forms represents the most adequate expression of one common truth of faith. With weak sensitivity to religious truth this question is not of great importance and people are satisfied with the general content of the form. But with strong energy of religious feeling it becomes of enormous significance. The people seek a form which would more fully and truly express the faith they hold and cannot be satisfied with a form which in their opinion is not adequate to the content. Such energy of feeling distinguishes the American people, and hence in them arises that religious ferment which is the characteristic feature of their religious life. In this search for truth, by virtue of the basic principle of Protestantism, every person is left exclusively to himself. He has no such more general and stable authority to which he could turn for help and on whose resolution he could rely. Hence religious thought passes through many forms and is in constant fluctuation and doubt regarding the result of its logical work. The result of this ferment is that fragmentation of religious forms in which American religiosity manifests itself. This fragmentation in itself, together with the instability of forms, is obvious proof of the inadequacy of individualism in seeking that form which would fully express truth. Such a form can only be one. Consciousness of this truth can find counterbalance in intellectual individualism, but as soon as the force of intellectual individualism proves not sufficiently developed to bear the weight of responsibility, then the principle of Protestantism can be only a burden for the religious consciousness of the people, and sooner or later it will attempt to cast off this burden and find a principle more corresponding to its character.

If we compare these basic principles of Protestantism with the basic features of the character of the American people, there will appear to be an essential difference despite their seeming correspondence. The basic feature of American character, as shown above, is that healthy mediocrity which is conditioned by the state of self-limiting elements and forces. By virtue of this healthy mediocrity, as an expression of the equilibrium of forces, the American character is alien to extremity. It is distinguished by independence, but at the same time it loves moderation. It will not tolerate any external limitation, but at the same time it imposes on itself such limitations which in some respects seem constraining to a less freedom-loving character, and to them it submits with astonishing exactness. Discipline reaches nowhere the wide development it achieves in America. In schools it reaches the degree of military drill and is applied with equal strictness both to male and female institutions. Public opinion nowhere has such power over individuals as in this country of freedom, and violation of established public rules is punished with merciless severity. As in public affairs, and especially in religious respects, the character of the American people displays traits of strict Puritanism which gives all a strict disciplinary stamp. Clearly such a character does not correspond to the unbounded individualism presented by Protestantism, and this lack of correspondence clearly appears in the history of the development of religious consciousness of the American people. The first stage of this development was the recognition of one exclusive, unchanging form of doctrine outside which everything was condemned as impious and harmful, and the system itself was raised to the degree of infallible church authority, though this obviously stood in open contradiction with the basic principles of Protestantism lying at the foundation of this system. Such was the epoch of the dominance of the original, pure, stern, and exclusive Puritanism. With the passage of time by necessity this exclusive system had to yield partly to new arriving elements bringing with them features of German free thought and Romance sentimentalism. This collision of opposite elements had as its result such a fluctuation of forces that beneath the apparent general cover of Puritanism the real center of religious consciousness was lost and religious ferment began. Religious consciousness became fragmented, the people had no single common guiding principle of faith and, relying solely on their own forces, gave themselves to the search for religious truth. With the intensity of religious feeling the ferment was strong; sects arose and disappeared, religious consciousness grew tense then weakened. By force of inertia the process of centrifugal development reached its highest point; sects not only fragmented into the minutest units but also became extremely intolerant of one another. Subtle confessional polemic became the dominant sentiment of preaching and theological literature. This process reached its extreme development before the Civil War when it at the same time found correspondence in the process of political decentralization. At that time the country presented a chaotic mixture of both religious and political opinions. When the process of political decentralization reached extreme development after which came a crisis giving opposite direction to political consciousness of the people, this crisis was at the same time a turning point in the religious consciousness of the people. The terrible blow of war shook the national organism to its inner foundations and before the national consciousness opened a terrible abyss to which it had come through the process of decentralization. As if terrified by this abyss the national consciousness sharply turned in the opposite direction, a swift process of centralization began. In this reverse process of political consciousness religious consciousness also could not continue in its former direction. The crisis and the turn it produced cut so deeply into the inner life of the people that it exerted irresistible influence on all national forces and gave them all new direction. In the people began to strengthen the idea of their national unity and increasingly began to fall the political party representing the principles of decentralization. In religious respects the new process made itself known in that religious ferment began to weaken, religious consciousness, exhausted by fruitless search for truth according to the principles of individualism, began to seek more stable and reliable support for itself, and therefore small sects began to group themselves around larger communities.