The Reformed in Russia Proper, form
two widely separated bodies, which because of
?
two widely separated bodies, which because of
?
Poland - 1910 - Protestantism in Poland, a Brief Study of its History
46
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
the power to distribute domains called staros-
ties among the nobles, who held them for life;
and these were bestowed by this king upon
converts to Rome. This proselyting policy
had its effect upon ambitious men. At the be-
ginning of his reign, the senate had only a
minority of Catholics; at its close, it had but
two Protestants. He gloried in the nickname
of King of the Jesuits, and was a tool in their
hands. Their riches increased so rapidly that
in 1627 their annual income was four hundred
thousand dollars, a large sum at that period.
They had fifty schools, in which the majority
of the children of the nobles were taught, and
thus they practically superintended national
education. Protestant schools, though superior
in their methods, could not compete with the
great endowments of the Jesuits. They were
changed into Romish schools, were abandoned
entirely, or had a lingering existence, as many
of their noble patrons apostatized to Rome.
Broscius, a zealous Romanist, described the sys-
tem of teaching in Jesuit schools: "The Jesu-
its teach children the grammar of Alvar,1 which
is very difficult to understand, and much time
is spent at it. This they do, that by keeping
children a long time in school tliev may be-
1A Spanish Jesuit who published a Latin grammar.
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 47
come well acquainted with their minds. They
want to keep boys at school till the age of
manhood, that they may engage for their order
those who show much talent or expect large
inheritances. But when an individual possesses
no talents, nor has expectations, they will not
retain him. And what can he do? Knowing
nothing, and being unfit for any useful occu-
pation, he must request the fathers to take
care of him, who will provide him with an in-
ferior office in the household of some benefac-
tor of theirs, that they may make use of him
afterwards as a tool for their purposes. " Litera-
ture rapidly declined under this withering in-
fluence; and scarcely any work of merit was
produced from that time until the latter part
of the eighteenth century, when the Jesuits
lost their power. The language was corrupted
by a mixture of Latin and barbaric phrases
called Macaronic--a badge of this shameful
servitude. Contrary to the decree which pro-
claimed the liberty of the press, the Jesuits
introduced their censorship. Many Protestant
printing presses went the way of their schools,
into oblivion, or into Romanist hands. The
Jesuits systematically destroyed all records
and memorials of Protestantism, so that the
materials for a history of the Polish Reforma-
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? 48 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
tion have become rare or difficult of access;
which accounts for the fact that it has been
obscured and undervalued.
Krasinski regards the overthrow of Protes-
tantism in Poland as unparalleled in the re-
ligious world. It was not suppressed by legal
authority as in Italy or Spain, but "by an
unprincipled faction, acting in opposition to
the laws of the country, and is the more
remarkable, as the free institutions of Poland
which facilitated the progress of the Eefor-
mation were afterwards rendered subservient
to the persecution of its disciples. " "The
most invariable and successful policy of the
Jesuits in Poland was to agitate the lower
classes, and to insure, by intrigues with the
higher ranks of society, impunity to the ex-
cesses which an infuriated mob committed at
their instigation. "
The preaching of Cardinal Hosius, that no
faith should be kept with heretics, brought its
fruitage when the Reformed church of Cra-
cow was pillaged by a mob, in 1574; and
other outrages occurred there in later 3Tears.
Such attempts were repeated at Vilna, but
restrained by Stephen Bathori. Another riot
occurred in 1591, when the Protestant church
at Cracow was burned. The Jesuit Skargaj
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 49
claiming divine inspiration, highly praised the
destruction of this church. The congregation
dared not rebuild it, but transferred their place
of worship to the neighboring village of
Alexandrowice. Sigismund the Third left
unpunished the rioters who in 1593 plundered
the house of John Kolay, one of the principal
citizens of Cfacow, and a member of this con-
gregation. In 1613 another mob attacked
Protestants in Alexandrowice ; and they again
removed their place of worship to a more dis-
tant village. In 1626, materials for their new
building in this village were destroyed by a
mob. In 1605, and in subsequent years, the
Protestant churches of Posnania were sim-
ilarly destroyed through Jesuit instigations.
A young Italian minister at Vilna suffered
martyrdom for his faith ; and like persecutions
occurred at Lublin. Here the wife of William
Tuck, a Scottish merchant, while he was
absent on a journey, was fettered and im-
prisoned for her faith, wrhich she would not
recant, in spite of threats and visits of the
Jesuits. When asked whether she were a
Catholic, and attended the confessional, she
replied, "No; I am evangelical and confess my
sins to God. " She was the mother of five
children, the youngest of whom was but an
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? 50 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
infant, but intercessions in her behalf were in
vain.
Through the growing power of the Jesuits,
such excesses could not be prevented by
Vladislav the Fourth, son and successor of
Sigismund the Third. His tolerance was
shown by his acceptance of Christopher
Radziwill's dedication of the Bible, already
mentioned. With conciliatory designs, he
summoned a conference of Protestants and
Romanists at Thorn in 1645, the Colloquium
Caritativum, as it was called. This held
thirty-six meetings, and led only to increased
bitterness and controversial publications.
Vladislav was succeeded by his brother,
John Casimir, who was a Jesuit and a cardi-
nal. His reign continued the work of destruc-
tion begun by his father, Sigismund. Protes-
tantism was crushed and ceased to be a power
in the nation. Subsequent kings, including
Sobieski and the Saxon dynasty that followed
him, were unable or unwilling to punish re-
ligious persecutions. In 1724, Eosner the
burgomaster of Thorn and several leading
Protestants were executed, upon the false
charge of having fomented a riot--atrocities
which sent a thrill of horror throughout Europe.
Protests came from the English Minister at the
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 51
Polish court, from Prussia, Denmark, Sweden,
Holland, and even from the Czar of Russia,
who threatened war; but all this only made
matters worse for the Protestants.
But the misfortunes of Poland accompanied
the persecution of evangelical believers. Civil
, war broke out during the reign of Sigismund
the Third. The Muscovites sought an alliance
with Poland and elected his son "Vladislav
their czar; but Sigismund sought this crown
for himself. As the Muscovites saw his zeal
for Pome they changed their policy and op-
posed a Polish alliance. Tolerance brought
foreigners to Poland; intolerance made them
emigrate elsewhere. The borders were dev-
astated by Turks and Tartars. Stephen Ba-
thori had given military organization to the
Cossacks of the Ukraine, who fought loyally
for Poland against Turks, Tartars, and even
their brethren the Muscovites. When perse-
cution attacked them, when the last Greek
church of Lublin was taken from them, Li-
tynski, one of their nobles, said, "God, who
i surely punishes every wickedness, will raise a
nation which will take for one a hundred
churches. " The revolt of the Cossacks as
John Casimir came to the throne shook the
kingdom of Poland to its foundations. A
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? 52 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
king of Sweden invaded Poland and occupied
the greater part of its territory for a time. It
was natural, though unfortunate, for the Prot-
estants of Poland to look to Sweden for aid,
to Gustavus Adolphus, and Charles the Twelfth.
This exposed them to the charge of being un-
patriotic, though they furnished some of Po-
land's bravest soldiers, for instance, Christopher
Eadziwill who defended Livonia against the
Swedes. King Sigismund hated him because
he was a Protestant, and allowed his royal
flatterers to call that conflict the " Radziwill-
ian War. " He would not assist Eadziwill.
In the end, Livonia was lost to his kingdom.
The fame of Poland's warriors resounded
through Europe in the seventeenth century,
but they could not prevent her fall.
The Elector of Saxony, under the name of
Augustus the Second, succeeded John Sobieski
as King of Poland in 1696. He was expelled
from the country by Charles the Twelfth of
Sweden; but after the battle of Pultava was
restored by the aid of Peter the Great.
Hitherto, the persecutions of Protestants were
conducted in defiance of constitutional law,
but under his reign the laws themselves were
changed by a remarkable treaty w^hieh re-
stricted religious liberty.
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 53
In order to maintain, his authority against
invaders and insurgents, Augustus kept a body
of Saxon troops in Poland, who committed ex-
cesses as if they were in an enemy's country.
The Poles were soon at war with these troops,
until Peter the Great intervened and drew up
the Treaty of Warsaw between the King and
the nation in 1716. Szaniawski, afterwards
Bishop of Cracow, who owed his elevation to
the Czar Peter, inserted a paragraph which
was a triumph for Rome: "As it is not al-
lowed to the dissident in the Christian religion
to have any churches with a free religious
service in them, except such as were built be-
fore the enactment of the laws of 1632, 1648,
1668, 1671:, and as it is permitted only to those
dissidents who inhabit the towns and other
places of the kingdom of Poland and the
grand duchy of Lithuania to have in their
dwellings private service, nevertheless with-
out singing and sermons, therefore it is en-
acted by the authority of the present treaty,
that all Protestant churches which may be
found to have been built in contravention to
the above-mentioned laws, may be destroyed;
and those who entertain such different opinions
about religion shall not have any meetings or
assemblies, either in public or private, for the
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? 54 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
sake of preaching or singing. " But this same
treaty was the death warrant of Polish inde-
pendence ; for Szaniawski put in another clause
which reduced the army of Poland from eighty
thousand to eighteen thousand, a number in-
sufficient to guard the long line of exposed
frontiers.
The historian Lelewel says: "From the be-
ginning of the reign of John Casimir and the
wars of the Cossacks to the end of the Swedish
wars and the Dumb Diet, i. e. , from 1648 to
1717, different kinds of disasters desolated the
Polish soil and nation. These calamities
caused the decline of Poland, the limits of
which were narrowed by the loss of many
provinces, whilst its population was diminished
by the emigration of the Cossacks, the Socin-
ians, and a great number of Protestants, as well
as by the exclusion from the rights of citizens of
the remaining dissidents. The nation was
rendered weak by general impoverishment
and distress ; by the system of education which
was either in the hands of the Jesuits or en-
tirely neglected; finally by the exhaustion
consequent on the convulsive struggles that
had agitated the country during seventy
years. "
Under Augustus the Third the dissidents
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
55
suffered, as is shown by their petition to
Stanislaus Poniatowski at the Diet of 1766, in
which they say: "Our churches have been
partly taken from us under different pretenses,
and partly are falling into ruins, as the repair-
ing of them is prohibited. Our youth is
obliged to grow up in ignorance, and without
the knowledge of God. The burying of our
dead, even at night time, is exposed to great
danger; and we are obliged in order to bap-
tize children to convey them out of the coun-
try. "
But the end was at hand. Reforms proposed
by Polish patriots, which received the plau-
dits of English statesmen, came too late to save
the unhappy kingdom. Three successive par-
titions in a little more than twenty years di-
vided Poland between Russia, Prussia, and
Austria, and it vanished from the map of Eu-
rope. Bloody insurrections have failed to
break the Russian yoke, which is the heavier
for the presence and license of an army of
three hundred thousand Russian soldiers.
Krasinski gives a description of the Lithuan-
ian guards, almost exclusively officered by
Protestant nobles of that province, and the
fifth regiment of infantry which contained
many of them. They fought the forces of
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? 56 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
Suwaroff, JSTov. 5th, 1794, "the most fatal day
of Poland's annals. The commander of the
last-named regiment, Count Paul Grabowski,
belonging to a distinguished Protestant family,
a young man of great merit, was then laid up
with illness. He dragged himself, however,
from his sick bed in order not to miss the post
of honor on the night when the attack was ex-
pected. He found a glorious death at the head
of his regiment, which, with the Lithuanian
guards, was lost to a man; not a single
man escaped, not a single man surrendered.
This fatal day threw into mourning almost
all the noble Protestant families of Lithu-
ania. " Our author frankly confesses mis-
takes of Polish Protestants; and he pathet-
ically closes his book by showing the " expia-
tory sacrifice which they made of themselves
on the funeral pile of their country. "
Yet after centuries of persecution, Polish
Protestants survive, as we learn from a letter
dated Warsaw, May 9-21, 1884, sent to the
Belfast Presbyterian council, by the Evan-
gelical Reformed Consistory in the kingdom of
Poland:--
"Perhaps it is not known to all the mem-
bers of your venerable Assembly, that there
exists in the Kingdom of Poland, an Evangel-
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 51
ical Eeformed Church, with a Synodical Pres-
byterian form of government, which conducts
its affairs according to Church order. Al-
though the spirit of the Reformation has been
partly trodden down and partly chilled, yet
ten Evangelical Reformed Congregations form
themselves into a union whose affairs are
managed by an annual Sjmod, not ignoring a
Presbytery in every congregation; a moder-
ator of Synod (the Consistory) carries out the
findings of the same, and is, besides, an author-
ity mediating between the Church and the
State, the free exercise of all the rights of the
Church not being interfered with. The num-
ber of souls under pastoral care is six thousand,
besides those who are living in the Dispersion.
"We have only four pastors at present in settled
charges. In a material point of view, there is
much to be wished for, except in the case of
the congregation in Warsaw, which in the
year 1880 celebrated joyfully the acquisition
of a beautiful house of worship. The harvest
is great; we request that you embrace us in
your intercessory prayer, that the Lord of the
harvest will send forth laborers into his har-
vest. "
The report of the London Presbyterian
Council, 1889, gives a description of the Re-
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? 58 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
formed churches in Russia, which it classifies
in three groups, those in "Poland, Lithuania,
and the rest of the Empire. 1. The Reformed
in what was formerly the Kingdom of Poland
--partly the remains of the once nourishing
Presbyterian Church of Little Poland, formed
into a Synod by John a Lasco, number at pres-
ent six thousand five hundred or seven thou-
sand souls. There are nine congregations,
with a Consistory in Warsaw. The oldest of
these congregations, that of Sereje, was founded
in 1584; that of Warsaw, 1776; that of Zelow,
1802, which, with nearly two thousand four
hundred members, is a purety Bohemian con-
gregation, descendants of the old Bohemian
Presbyterians. 2. The Reformed congrega-
tions in Lithuania are firmly bound together
in a true Presbyterian organization, which
includes thirteen or fourteen congregations,
embracing about eleven thousand one hundred
and twenty-five souls. Some congregations are
nearly extinct; some could not exist but for
old foundations which are to be traced to the
pious and powerful Prince Radziwill, the
friend of Calvin, and which afford material,
though at present wretched, means of sup-
port. 3.
The Reformed in Russia Proper, form
two widely separated bodies, which because of
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 59
the vast distance separating them have scarcely
any mutual sympathy. "
The doctrines of the Reformation must be
preached from evangelical pulpits, or instead
of a standing we shall have a falling church.
The history of the Reformation illustrates
these doctrines. Scripture teaches us a va-
riety of uses for history. For instance: In
intercession, "Yet they are thy people and
thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out
by thy mighty power and by thy stretched
out arm. " In entreaty: "Awake, awake, put
on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in
the ancient days, in the generations of old. .
Art thou not it that hath made the sea a way
for the ransomed to pass over? " In expostu-
lation: "O my people, wherein have I wearied
thee? For I brought thee up out of the land
of Egypt, . . . and I sent before thee
Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. " In praise: "O
give thanks . . . to him which led his
people through the wilderness: for his mercy
endureth forever. " In promise: "According
to the word that I covenanted with you when
ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth
among you: fear ye not. " In America, we
may enter into the labors of the departed
saints who toiled and suffered in Europe for
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? 60
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
the gospel. Each thought of the judgment
day grows more impressive as we see how
our Master puts himself in the place of the
foreigner, and blesses forever his true bene-
factors by the gracious acknowledgment, "I
was a stranger, and ye took me in. " Poles
are already joining our evangelical churches.
Schisms in their Catholic churches sometimes
show how restless they are under its despotism.
Let us give them the colporteur and the Bible,
the missionary and the gospel. They are worth
saving. The Turks had long possessed the city
of Constantine and the church of Chrysostom;
and boasted that they would also capture
'Roine and make St. Peter's a mosque. Who
rolled back that tide of Mohammedan inva-
sion, never to return? John Sobieski, a hero
of Poland. He had fought the Ottomans on
the Dniester, and although their position
seemed impregnable, and their forces four
times his own, he won a glorious victory.
Again, before terror-stricken Vienna, he at-
tacked the Turks, outnumbering his army
four to one. One hundred and twenty thou-
sand Turkish tents were still standing after
the battle. His decisive victory was the theme
of pulpits in Germany, Italy, and even in the
Protestant churches of England. Beside him
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 61
in the old cathedral of Cracow (the Polish
Westminster Abbey) sleeps Thaddeus Kosci-
usko who was honored by Americans for his
part in their war for liberty. Pulaski, an-
other Pole, showed himself a hero at Brandy-
wine and Germantown ; and also at Savannah,
where he fell and has his sepulcher, erected
by the people of Georgia, its corner stone
having been laid by Lafayette. And Poles
will make good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Copernicus, of Poland, whose name is known
wherever astronomy is taught, revolutionized
that science and discovered the secret of the
stars. Let us pray God that he may raise up
from this people some who shall turn many to
righteousness, and shine as the stars forever
and ever!
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MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
the power to distribute domains called staros-
ties among the nobles, who held them for life;
and these were bestowed by this king upon
converts to Rome. This proselyting policy
had its effect upon ambitious men. At the be-
ginning of his reign, the senate had only a
minority of Catholics; at its close, it had but
two Protestants. He gloried in the nickname
of King of the Jesuits, and was a tool in their
hands. Their riches increased so rapidly that
in 1627 their annual income was four hundred
thousand dollars, a large sum at that period.
They had fifty schools, in which the majority
of the children of the nobles were taught, and
thus they practically superintended national
education. Protestant schools, though superior
in their methods, could not compete with the
great endowments of the Jesuits. They were
changed into Romish schools, were abandoned
entirely, or had a lingering existence, as many
of their noble patrons apostatized to Rome.
Broscius, a zealous Romanist, described the sys-
tem of teaching in Jesuit schools: "The Jesu-
its teach children the grammar of Alvar,1 which
is very difficult to understand, and much time
is spent at it. This they do, that by keeping
children a long time in school tliev may be-
1A Spanish Jesuit who published a Latin grammar.
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 47
come well acquainted with their minds. They
want to keep boys at school till the age of
manhood, that they may engage for their order
those who show much talent or expect large
inheritances. But when an individual possesses
no talents, nor has expectations, they will not
retain him. And what can he do? Knowing
nothing, and being unfit for any useful occu-
pation, he must request the fathers to take
care of him, who will provide him with an in-
ferior office in the household of some benefac-
tor of theirs, that they may make use of him
afterwards as a tool for their purposes. " Litera-
ture rapidly declined under this withering in-
fluence; and scarcely any work of merit was
produced from that time until the latter part
of the eighteenth century, when the Jesuits
lost their power. The language was corrupted
by a mixture of Latin and barbaric phrases
called Macaronic--a badge of this shameful
servitude. Contrary to the decree which pro-
claimed the liberty of the press, the Jesuits
introduced their censorship. Many Protestant
printing presses went the way of their schools,
into oblivion, or into Romanist hands. The
Jesuits systematically destroyed all records
and memorials of Protestantism, so that the
materials for a history of the Polish Reforma-
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? 48 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
tion have become rare or difficult of access;
which accounts for the fact that it has been
obscured and undervalued.
Krasinski regards the overthrow of Protes-
tantism in Poland as unparalleled in the re-
ligious world. It was not suppressed by legal
authority as in Italy or Spain, but "by an
unprincipled faction, acting in opposition to
the laws of the country, and is the more
remarkable, as the free institutions of Poland
which facilitated the progress of the Eefor-
mation were afterwards rendered subservient
to the persecution of its disciples. " "The
most invariable and successful policy of the
Jesuits in Poland was to agitate the lower
classes, and to insure, by intrigues with the
higher ranks of society, impunity to the ex-
cesses which an infuriated mob committed at
their instigation. "
The preaching of Cardinal Hosius, that no
faith should be kept with heretics, brought its
fruitage when the Reformed church of Cra-
cow was pillaged by a mob, in 1574; and
other outrages occurred there in later 3Tears.
Such attempts were repeated at Vilna, but
restrained by Stephen Bathori. Another riot
occurred in 1591, when the Protestant church
at Cracow was burned. The Jesuit Skargaj
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 49
claiming divine inspiration, highly praised the
destruction of this church. The congregation
dared not rebuild it, but transferred their place
of worship to the neighboring village of
Alexandrowice. Sigismund the Third left
unpunished the rioters who in 1593 plundered
the house of John Kolay, one of the principal
citizens of Cfacow, and a member of this con-
gregation. In 1613 another mob attacked
Protestants in Alexandrowice ; and they again
removed their place of worship to a more dis-
tant village. In 1626, materials for their new
building in this village were destroyed by a
mob. In 1605, and in subsequent years, the
Protestant churches of Posnania were sim-
ilarly destroyed through Jesuit instigations.
A young Italian minister at Vilna suffered
martyrdom for his faith ; and like persecutions
occurred at Lublin. Here the wife of William
Tuck, a Scottish merchant, while he was
absent on a journey, was fettered and im-
prisoned for her faith, wrhich she would not
recant, in spite of threats and visits of the
Jesuits. When asked whether she were a
Catholic, and attended the confessional, she
replied, "No; I am evangelical and confess my
sins to God. " She was the mother of five
children, the youngest of whom was but an
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? 50 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
infant, but intercessions in her behalf were in
vain.
Through the growing power of the Jesuits,
such excesses could not be prevented by
Vladislav the Fourth, son and successor of
Sigismund the Third. His tolerance was
shown by his acceptance of Christopher
Radziwill's dedication of the Bible, already
mentioned. With conciliatory designs, he
summoned a conference of Protestants and
Romanists at Thorn in 1645, the Colloquium
Caritativum, as it was called. This held
thirty-six meetings, and led only to increased
bitterness and controversial publications.
Vladislav was succeeded by his brother,
John Casimir, who was a Jesuit and a cardi-
nal. His reign continued the work of destruc-
tion begun by his father, Sigismund. Protes-
tantism was crushed and ceased to be a power
in the nation. Subsequent kings, including
Sobieski and the Saxon dynasty that followed
him, were unable or unwilling to punish re-
ligious persecutions. In 1724, Eosner the
burgomaster of Thorn and several leading
Protestants were executed, upon the false
charge of having fomented a riot--atrocities
which sent a thrill of horror throughout Europe.
Protests came from the English Minister at the
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 51
Polish court, from Prussia, Denmark, Sweden,
Holland, and even from the Czar of Russia,
who threatened war; but all this only made
matters worse for the Protestants.
But the misfortunes of Poland accompanied
the persecution of evangelical believers. Civil
, war broke out during the reign of Sigismund
the Third. The Muscovites sought an alliance
with Poland and elected his son "Vladislav
their czar; but Sigismund sought this crown
for himself. As the Muscovites saw his zeal
for Pome they changed their policy and op-
posed a Polish alliance. Tolerance brought
foreigners to Poland; intolerance made them
emigrate elsewhere. The borders were dev-
astated by Turks and Tartars. Stephen Ba-
thori had given military organization to the
Cossacks of the Ukraine, who fought loyally
for Poland against Turks, Tartars, and even
their brethren the Muscovites. When perse-
cution attacked them, when the last Greek
church of Lublin was taken from them, Li-
tynski, one of their nobles, said, "God, who
i surely punishes every wickedness, will raise a
nation which will take for one a hundred
churches. " The revolt of the Cossacks as
John Casimir came to the throne shook the
kingdom of Poland to its foundations. A
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? 52 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
king of Sweden invaded Poland and occupied
the greater part of its territory for a time. It
was natural, though unfortunate, for the Prot-
estants of Poland to look to Sweden for aid,
to Gustavus Adolphus, and Charles the Twelfth.
This exposed them to the charge of being un-
patriotic, though they furnished some of Po-
land's bravest soldiers, for instance, Christopher
Eadziwill who defended Livonia against the
Swedes. King Sigismund hated him because
he was a Protestant, and allowed his royal
flatterers to call that conflict the " Radziwill-
ian War. " He would not assist Eadziwill.
In the end, Livonia was lost to his kingdom.
The fame of Poland's warriors resounded
through Europe in the seventeenth century,
but they could not prevent her fall.
The Elector of Saxony, under the name of
Augustus the Second, succeeded John Sobieski
as King of Poland in 1696. He was expelled
from the country by Charles the Twelfth of
Sweden; but after the battle of Pultava was
restored by the aid of Peter the Great.
Hitherto, the persecutions of Protestants were
conducted in defiance of constitutional law,
but under his reign the laws themselves were
changed by a remarkable treaty w^hieh re-
stricted religious liberty.
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 53
In order to maintain, his authority against
invaders and insurgents, Augustus kept a body
of Saxon troops in Poland, who committed ex-
cesses as if they were in an enemy's country.
The Poles were soon at war with these troops,
until Peter the Great intervened and drew up
the Treaty of Warsaw between the King and
the nation in 1716. Szaniawski, afterwards
Bishop of Cracow, who owed his elevation to
the Czar Peter, inserted a paragraph which
was a triumph for Rome: "As it is not al-
lowed to the dissident in the Christian religion
to have any churches with a free religious
service in them, except such as were built be-
fore the enactment of the laws of 1632, 1648,
1668, 1671:, and as it is permitted only to those
dissidents who inhabit the towns and other
places of the kingdom of Poland and the
grand duchy of Lithuania to have in their
dwellings private service, nevertheless with-
out singing and sermons, therefore it is en-
acted by the authority of the present treaty,
that all Protestant churches which may be
found to have been built in contravention to
the above-mentioned laws, may be destroyed;
and those who entertain such different opinions
about religion shall not have any meetings or
assemblies, either in public or private, for the
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? 54 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
sake of preaching or singing. " But this same
treaty was the death warrant of Polish inde-
pendence ; for Szaniawski put in another clause
which reduced the army of Poland from eighty
thousand to eighteen thousand, a number in-
sufficient to guard the long line of exposed
frontiers.
The historian Lelewel says: "From the be-
ginning of the reign of John Casimir and the
wars of the Cossacks to the end of the Swedish
wars and the Dumb Diet, i. e. , from 1648 to
1717, different kinds of disasters desolated the
Polish soil and nation. These calamities
caused the decline of Poland, the limits of
which were narrowed by the loss of many
provinces, whilst its population was diminished
by the emigration of the Cossacks, the Socin-
ians, and a great number of Protestants, as well
as by the exclusion from the rights of citizens of
the remaining dissidents. The nation was
rendered weak by general impoverishment
and distress ; by the system of education which
was either in the hands of the Jesuits or en-
tirely neglected; finally by the exhaustion
consequent on the convulsive struggles that
had agitated the country during seventy
years. "
Under Augustus the Third the dissidents
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
55
suffered, as is shown by their petition to
Stanislaus Poniatowski at the Diet of 1766, in
which they say: "Our churches have been
partly taken from us under different pretenses,
and partly are falling into ruins, as the repair-
ing of them is prohibited. Our youth is
obliged to grow up in ignorance, and without
the knowledge of God. The burying of our
dead, even at night time, is exposed to great
danger; and we are obliged in order to bap-
tize children to convey them out of the coun-
try. "
But the end was at hand. Reforms proposed
by Polish patriots, which received the plau-
dits of English statesmen, came too late to save
the unhappy kingdom. Three successive par-
titions in a little more than twenty years di-
vided Poland between Russia, Prussia, and
Austria, and it vanished from the map of Eu-
rope. Bloody insurrections have failed to
break the Russian yoke, which is the heavier
for the presence and license of an army of
three hundred thousand Russian soldiers.
Krasinski gives a description of the Lithuan-
ian guards, almost exclusively officered by
Protestant nobles of that province, and the
fifth regiment of infantry which contained
many of them. They fought the forces of
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? 56 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
Suwaroff, JSTov. 5th, 1794, "the most fatal day
of Poland's annals. The commander of the
last-named regiment, Count Paul Grabowski,
belonging to a distinguished Protestant family,
a young man of great merit, was then laid up
with illness. He dragged himself, however,
from his sick bed in order not to miss the post
of honor on the night when the attack was ex-
pected. He found a glorious death at the head
of his regiment, which, with the Lithuanian
guards, was lost to a man; not a single
man escaped, not a single man surrendered.
This fatal day threw into mourning almost
all the noble Protestant families of Lithu-
ania. " Our author frankly confesses mis-
takes of Polish Protestants; and he pathet-
ically closes his book by showing the " expia-
tory sacrifice which they made of themselves
on the funeral pile of their country. "
Yet after centuries of persecution, Polish
Protestants survive, as we learn from a letter
dated Warsaw, May 9-21, 1884, sent to the
Belfast Presbyterian council, by the Evan-
gelical Reformed Consistory in the kingdom of
Poland:--
"Perhaps it is not known to all the mem-
bers of your venerable Assembly, that there
exists in the Kingdom of Poland, an Evangel-
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 51
ical Eeformed Church, with a Synodical Pres-
byterian form of government, which conducts
its affairs according to Church order. Al-
though the spirit of the Reformation has been
partly trodden down and partly chilled, yet
ten Evangelical Reformed Congregations form
themselves into a union whose affairs are
managed by an annual Sjmod, not ignoring a
Presbytery in every congregation; a moder-
ator of Synod (the Consistory) carries out the
findings of the same, and is, besides, an author-
ity mediating between the Church and the
State, the free exercise of all the rights of the
Church not being interfered with. The num-
ber of souls under pastoral care is six thousand,
besides those who are living in the Dispersion.
"We have only four pastors at present in settled
charges. In a material point of view, there is
much to be wished for, except in the case of
the congregation in Warsaw, which in the
year 1880 celebrated joyfully the acquisition
of a beautiful house of worship. The harvest
is great; we request that you embrace us in
your intercessory prayer, that the Lord of the
harvest will send forth laborers into his har-
vest. "
The report of the London Presbyterian
Council, 1889, gives a description of the Re-
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? 58 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
formed churches in Russia, which it classifies
in three groups, those in "Poland, Lithuania,
and the rest of the Empire. 1. The Reformed
in what was formerly the Kingdom of Poland
--partly the remains of the once nourishing
Presbyterian Church of Little Poland, formed
into a Synod by John a Lasco, number at pres-
ent six thousand five hundred or seven thou-
sand souls. There are nine congregations,
with a Consistory in Warsaw. The oldest of
these congregations, that of Sereje, was founded
in 1584; that of Warsaw, 1776; that of Zelow,
1802, which, with nearly two thousand four
hundred members, is a purety Bohemian con-
gregation, descendants of the old Bohemian
Presbyterians. 2. The Reformed congrega-
tions in Lithuania are firmly bound together
in a true Presbyterian organization, which
includes thirteen or fourteen congregations,
embracing about eleven thousand one hundred
and twenty-five souls. Some congregations are
nearly extinct; some could not exist but for
old foundations which are to be traced to the
pious and powerful Prince Radziwill, the
friend of Calvin, and which afford material,
though at present wretched, means of sup-
port. 3.
The Reformed in Russia Proper, form
two widely separated bodies, which because of
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 59
the vast distance separating them have scarcely
any mutual sympathy. "
The doctrines of the Reformation must be
preached from evangelical pulpits, or instead
of a standing we shall have a falling church.
The history of the Reformation illustrates
these doctrines. Scripture teaches us a va-
riety of uses for history. For instance: In
intercession, "Yet they are thy people and
thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out
by thy mighty power and by thy stretched
out arm. " In entreaty: "Awake, awake, put
on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in
the ancient days, in the generations of old. .
Art thou not it that hath made the sea a way
for the ransomed to pass over? " In expostu-
lation: "O my people, wherein have I wearied
thee? For I brought thee up out of the land
of Egypt, . . . and I sent before thee
Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. " In praise: "O
give thanks . . . to him which led his
people through the wilderness: for his mercy
endureth forever. " In promise: "According
to the word that I covenanted with you when
ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth
among you: fear ye not. " In America, we
may enter into the labors of the departed
saints who toiled and suffered in Europe for
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? 60
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES
the gospel. Each thought of the judgment
day grows more impressive as we see how
our Master puts himself in the place of the
foreigner, and blesses forever his true bene-
factors by the gracious acknowledgment, "I
was a stranger, and ye took me in. " Poles
are already joining our evangelical churches.
Schisms in their Catholic churches sometimes
show how restless they are under its despotism.
Let us give them the colporteur and the Bible,
the missionary and the gospel. They are worth
saving. The Turks had long possessed the city
of Constantine and the church of Chrysostom;
and boasted that they would also capture
'Roine and make St. Peter's a mosque. Who
rolled back that tide of Mohammedan inva-
sion, never to return? John Sobieski, a hero
of Poland. He had fought the Ottomans on
the Dniester, and although their position
seemed impregnable, and their forces four
times his own, he won a glorious victory.
Again, before terror-stricken Vienna, he at-
tacked the Turks, outnumbering his army
four to one. One hundred and twenty thou-
sand Turkish tents were still standing after
the battle. His decisive victory was the theme
of pulpits in Germany, Italy, and even in the
Protestant churches of England. Beside him
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? MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 61
in the old cathedral of Cracow (the Polish
Westminster Abbey) sleeps Thaddeus Kosci-
usko who was honored by Americans for his
part in their war for liberty. Pulaski, an-
other Pole, showed himself a hero at Brandy-
wine and Germantown ; and also at Savannah,
where he fell and has his sepulcher, erected
by the people of Georgia, its corner stone
having been laid by Lafayette. And Poles
will make good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Copernicus, of Poland, whose name is known
wherever astronomy is taught, revolutionized
that science and discovered the secret of the
stars. Let us pray God that he may raise up
from this people some who shall turn many to
righteousness, and shine as the stars forever
and ever!
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