Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History; Mysticism; Patarines
The incarnation of the Son of God was the indissoluble union of
Spirit with form as the basis of true religion. Thenceforth, Spirit
was no more to be dissociated from matter, authority from a visible
Church, grace from a sacramental sign, morality from a fixed law.
All the great revolts against Catholicism in the middle-ages, were
more or less revolts against this principle and were reversions to
pure spiritualism. The Reformation was taken advantage of for the
mystic aspirations of men to run riot. Individual emotion became
the supreme and sole criticism of right and wrong, of truth and
falsehood, and sole authority to which submission must be tendered.
In the autumn of 1817, Margaretta of Wildisbuch met a woman who
was also remarkable in her way, and the head of another revivalist
movement. This was Julianne von Krüdner; about whom a word must now
be said.
Julianne was born in 1766, at Riga, the daughter of a noble and
wealthy family. Her father visited Paris and took the child with
him, where she made the acquaintance of the rationalistic and
speculative spirits of French society, before the Revolution.
In a Voltairean atmosphere, the little Julianne grew up without
religious faith or moral principle. At the age of fourteen she was
married to a man much older than herself, the Baron von Krüdner,
Russian Ambassador at Venice. There her notorious immoralities
resulted in a separation, and Julianne was obliged to return to her
father's house at Riga. This did not satisfy her love of pleasure
and vanity, and she went to St. Petersburg and then to Paris,
where she threw herself into every sort of dissipation. She wrote
a novel, "Valérie," in which she frankly admitted that woman, when
young, must give herself up to pleasure, then take up with art, and
finally, when nothing else was left her, devote herself to religion.
At the age of forty she had already entered on this final phase.
She went to Berlin, was admitted to companionship with the Queen,
Louise, and endeavoured to "convert" her. The sweet, holy queen
required no conversion, and the Baroness von Krüdner was obliged to
leave Berlin. She wandered thenceforth from place to place, was now
in Paris, then in Geneva, and then in Germany. At Karlsruhe she met
Jung-Stilling; and thenceforth threw herself heart and soul into the
pietistic revival. Her mission now was--so she conceived--to preach
the Gospel to the poor. In 1814 she obtained access to the Russian
Court, where her prophecies and exhortations produced such an effect
on the spirit of the Czar, Alexander I., that he entreated her to
accompany him to Paris. She did so, and held spiritual conferences
and prayer meetings in the French capital. Alexander soon tired of
her, and she departed to Basel, where she won to her the Genevan
Pastor Empeytaz and the Basel Professor Lachenal. Her meetings for
revival, which were largely attended, caused general excitement,
but led to many domestic quarrels, so that the city council gave
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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