PRACTICAL LIFE. Such confidence in the power of the word and such stress laid on solafidianism. it has been ohjeeted, are unfavorable to religious earnestness. The abuse of these principles doubt less is, but the record of Lutheranism is on the whole one of faithful attention to spiritual in terests. By its catechisation this Church trains its children in Christian faith and life, maintain ing in the spiritual realm a standard of education akin to the system of general education which prevails in Lutheran countries. Missions to the heathen were confessedly impracticable for Prot estants in the Reformation age. yet as early as 1559 Gustavus Vasa established a mission among the Lapps in Northern Sweden. Others carried evangelical doctrines into Russia. King Fred erick IV. of Denmark sent out missionaries io India. and Ziegenbalg and PRitzehau sailed for Tranquebar in July. 1706, almost a century be fore the formation of English missionary so cieties. Lutheran Halle became the centre of foreign mission activity. A colony of Swedes, which settled the Delaware River in 1636, were the first Protestants to come to America with the express object of evangelizing the aborigines, and one of its clergymen. John Cam panins, by his translation of Luther's catechism, made the first effort at publication in an Indian tongue. Although Lutheran Europe lacks the wealth of England and America, and although Lutheran contributions in this country fall be low those of some other churches, yet foreign missions are zealously prosecuted by nearly all American Lutheran bodies, and European Lutherans maintain a number of powerful so cities: the Berlin, the Leipzig. the Rhenish. the Bremen. the Gossner. the Basel. the Idermanns burg. the Norwegian, the Swedish. the Danish, etc., whose missionaries are laboring in every quarter of the heathen world. (See MISSIONS, CHRISTUN. ) The Lutherans of Europe have had a peculiar and enormous task in following every where the streams of emigration with the min istry of the word. For the purpose of training pastors for this work eleven seminaries-are sup ported in Germany by voluntary offerings. An other peculiar work is done by the Gustav Adolph Verein. an association with more than one thousand branches. which gives aid to the Diaspora, i.e. Protestants living in Roman Cath olic eonummities. Its income, in 1901, was $500. 000. There is also considerable activity in Jew ish missions: the work of the Mission" in Germany has recently grown to he a mighty power in protecting and rescuing the imperiled members of the Church: philanthropic institu tions of every description are numberless: and societies abound for the distribution of the Scrip tures. The Canstein Bible Institute was founded at Halle in 1; 10. a hundred years before the
British Foreign Bible Society.
IlisTonv. The most notable external event in the history of Lutheranism. after the triumph of the Reformation in 1555. was the forcible transference. a few wars later, by the civil au• thorities, of the churches of the Palatinate. Bremen, and Anhalt to the Reformed communion. The immediate cause of this was a strenuous endeavor to force an accommodation between the Lutheran doetrine of the actual participation in Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist. and Calvin's view of a spiritual enjoyment of Christ's body and blood by faith. It was the first en deavor for denominational union and resulted in rending the Lutheran body. A similar zeal for a union of the evangelical forces. inspired by the determination to hold the .differenees between the Lutherans and the Reformed as non-essen• tial, in the seventeenth century, wrested the Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel and the Court (thought not the people) of the Electorate of Brandenburg from Lutheran principles. Luther's cateehism was forbidden in the former country, the 1:efortned worship was introduced, and re calcitrant pastors were banished and replaced by Calvinists. The tendency toward union led to numerous conferences (Leipzig, 1631; Thorn, 1645; Cassel. 16611, the main issue in dispute being always the distinctively Lutheran doc trine of the Lord's Supper. The champions of union sought agreement in the use of a for mula which, while recognizing the Lutheran view, admit 61 a Calvinistic interpretation. The result of these efforts as well as of the two edicts of the Great Elector of Brandenburg ( 1664) was the widening rather than the heal ing of division.
The eighteenth century witnessed the decay of Pietism, which, after it quickened every spiritual interest, left a harvest of narrowness and cant, of hazy emotion and seetarian fanati cism. Pietism was followed by the sway of Ra tionalism, which, by its assault on the doctrines of Christianity. threatened to poison the Church's heart and paralyze all its activity.
The most notable event of the nineteenth cen tury was the edict of Frederick William which in ISI; united the Lutheran and the Re formed of Prussia in one State Church, i.e. under one system of government, while each denomina tion adhered to its own confession. a measure followed by several other German 'States. The Reformed as a body have as a result almost disappeared, while Lutheranism has been mcdh. fled by a Reformed leaven. For further details concerning European Lutheranism, see the arti cles on Lutheran countries and the biographical sketches of Lutheran leaders; see also the ar ticle GERMAN THEOLOGY,