Abraham Kuyper — The Antithesis between Symbolism and Revelation: Lecture Delivered before the Historical Presbyterian Society in Philadelphia, Pa. (Amsterdam–Pretoria: Höveker & Wormser; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, [1899]), from sources.neocalvinism.org, checked against the Internet Archive scan.
A lecture Kuyper gave to the Historical Presbyterian Society in Philadelphia, on the Stone Lectures trip of 1898: the ritualism that was drawing the children of English non-conformists back to the episcopalian services and now threatened Calvinist church life. Symbolism, he argues, replaces revelation and falls back from conscious to unconscious religion, while Calvinism puts the Word first and allows only such forms of worship as echo it; he closes with a test for telling the harmful influence of the symbolical from a right love of liturgical reform. The Dutch version appeared in De Heraut in December 1898.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Availing myself with much pleasure of the opportunity which your kind invitation puts in my way, to say a few words to your honoured Society, it is not my design to give an elaborate lecture, but only to make a few remarks on a subject that falls within the limits of your interests and mine. This subject is the antithesis between Symbolism and Revelation, or the current of symbolical religion, which of late is becoming almost dominant in England, and now already in a considerable degree menaces our Calvinistic church-life.
The facts need hardly any proof. All over non-conformistic England there is no end of complaint, that so many of the children of the second generation are abandoning the paths of their fathers, and are publicly and earnestly declaring their preference for the episcopalian services. In one general assembly after another one of the chief topics in order has been the ever-returning question: how to keep the rising generation in the fold. In so much as you have followed the debates on this question, and the resolutions taken, you also know in what way improvement at times has been looked for. The astonishing proposition to make non-conformism more attractive, by connecting with the church a dancing or boxing school, or a large room for indoor and a broad field for outdoor sports, speaks volumes. I remember that two years ago a Congregational minister touched a different chord, when he pointed his audience to the Calvinists in Wales and in Holland, who, in keeping more closely to their standards, had no difficulty whatsoever in kindling the love for their own churches in the hearts of their children. But his voice was a voice of one crying in the wilderness, and the uneasy feeling of an approaching ebbtide among Methodists and Congregationalists in England is still on the increase. Even outside the churches in the daily press this reflux in the general spirit is watched so keenly, and this increasing sympathy for Ritualism is considered to be of so far reaching consequences, that liberal papers ascribe to it for a large part, the overwhelming majority which Lord Salisbury secured at the last elections. For three-quarters of a century, as they frankly acknowledge, non-conformism had been the stronghold of the Liberals, and it is this remarkable change in the public mind, which, religiously being more in favor of Ritualism, turns politically to the advantage of the conservatives and unionists. The interesting coming forward of the unionists under Mr. Chamberlain was no doubt incidentally brought about by Mr. Gladstone’s persevering support of home-rule, but was countenanced, as they tell us, in no small proportion by this same ritualistic movement. In the long run our human mind cannot forsake its oneness of impulse. The track which it beats in matters of religion, is almost spontaneously followed in social and political affairs. So much to convince you that this symbolical movement, if it carries the day, far from being a mere trifle in church-life, is on the contrary impregnated by an energetic principle, which menaces to react upon our whole human existence and upon the whole history of the world.
The second stage of this movement (for I emphasize that ecclesiastically it has three stages) is to be observed in the Episcopal church itself. In the first period the thirst of the non-conformistic renegade after more artistic worship is duly satisfied by the plainest service conducted by a low-church minister. But for the church of England people, things are very differently conditioned. The same attraction which the low-church is exercising upon a faltering and wavering non-conformist, the episcopalian himself undergoes from the so-called high-church movement. The common prayer book seems to them a dull sailing with quartering winds, or better still, a display of the flag at halfmast. The thirst for symbolism once felt is not quenched by half measures. The more such a passion is indulged in, the more it is aggravated. Thus from the low-church they stepped over into the high-church, and here they found the clergy and the bishop almost constantly engaged in rivalry to go still higher on the highest also in this ritualistic competition always having the lead. I visited England, and I attended the episcopal services, twenty years ago, and I found that what was considered very high a quarter of a century ago, is now already in some circles most disdainfully condemned as being behindhand, if not a derision of the sanctuary. Almost every year a new item is added to the overburdened services, and no one can foretell, where finally this display of ritualistic inventiveness will stop. Fully aware of the danger that lurks behind all these paraphernalia Sir William Harcourt made an impressive and cogent speech, as you know, upon this matter in the House of Commons, and recommended that it should be thwarted by government; as if a deep spiritual movement could ever be checked by the executive power, and as if in such a case anything short of the reaction of the opposite spiritual principle could change the mind of the people.