Semitic Lanrnsses

Snowden THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG 466

Social Service

Lay Representation (1835); Lectures on Biblical Sub­

jects (1836), and a volume of sermons (1846; ed. W.

G. Snethen).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: References to him will be found in the

literature on the early Methodists, e.g., J. M. Buckley, in

American Church History Series, v. 341, 364, 366, 533,

599, New York, 1896.

SNOWDEN, JAMES HENRY: Presbyterian; b.

at Hookstown, Pa., Oct. 18, 1852. He was educated

at Washington and Jefferson College (A.B., 1875)

and Western Theological Seminary, Alleghany, Pa.

(graduated, 1878). He has held pastorates at Huron,

O. (1879 83), First Presbyterian Church, Sharon,

Pa. (1883 86), and Second Presbyterian Church,

Washington, Pa. (since 1886). From 1893 to 1898

he was also adjunct professor of political economy

and ethics in Washington and Jefferson College, and

since 1898 has been editor in chief of The Presby­

terian Banner (Pittsburg). He favored the revision

of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith in 1901 03

and union with the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church in 1904 06, and in theology belongs to the

progressive wing of his denomination. He has

written Scenes and Sayings in the Life of Christ

(Chicago, 1903); and Summer across the Sea (New

York, 1909).

SOCIAL BRETHREN: A denomination of Chris­

tians holding to the general doctrines of orthodox

Christianity, formed in 1867 by an association of

persons who had been members of various churches

but disagreed with their former brethren on certain

points of doctrine and usage. The leading points

of their faith are belief (1) in the Trinity as united

SOCIAL SERVICE

I. General Survey of Philanthropy.

Among Hebrews and Orientals

(§ 1).

In the Eastern Christian Church

(§ 2).

The Occident (§ 3).

Decline in the Middle Ages

(§ 4).

Rise of Monastic and Cathedral

Hospitals (§ 5).

Municipal Hospitals (§ 6).

The Reformation (§ 7).

Humanism and Modern Philan­

thropy (§ 8).

II. Philanthropy in Great Britain.

To Downfall of Monasteries

(§ 1).

To End of Seventeenth Century

(§ 2).

into one godhead; (2) in the Scriptures as contain­ing all things necessary to salvation; (3) in Christ as the only mediator between God and man; (4) in the visible Church as the congregation of the faith­ful who have been redeemed through Christ, among whom the pure Word of God is preached and to whom the sacraments are duly administered; (5) in redemption, regeneration, sanctification, and salvation through Christ as enduring to the end, yet with a possibility of apostasy; (6) in baptism by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion and the Lord's Supper as ordinances of Jesus Christ appointed in the Church, of which true believers are proper sub­jects, to which all such have right to be admitted; (7) in suffrage and free speech in the Church as the right of all lay members; and (8) that ministers are called of God to preach the Gospel and that only.

The churches are principally in Illinois and Mis­souri. They are grouped into associations of the ordained ministers, licensed preachers, exhorters, and delegates of the societies of a covenant body of three or more churches; the associations possess appellate jurisdiction over the churches. The as­sociations are affiliated in a general assembly com­posed of the ordained ministers, licensed preachers, exhorters, general superintendent of schools, and delegates of two or more associations, and this as­sembly has appellate jurisdiction over the associa­tions. The associations meet annually, the general assembly every second year.

The United States Census Bulletin for 1910 gives them for 1906: 17 organizations, 15 ministers, 1,262 communicants, 15 church buildings with two rented halls, and church property valued at $13,800.

OF THE CHURCH.

Sporadic Efforts for Relief of Need

(§ 3).

Legislative and Other Relief Meas­ures (§ 4).

Rise of Corporate Philanthropy

(§ 5).

Hospitals; Care of Insane; Nursing (§ 6).

Anti Slavery and Prison Reform (§ 7).

Ragged Schools; Young People's .Societies (§ 8).

Movements under Personal Initia­tive (§ 9).

Movements in Scotland (§ 10).

Total Abstinence (§ 11).

The Colonies (§ 12).

Prospects (¢ 13).

III. Philanthropy in America.

I. General Survey of philanthropy. The pre­

Christian world possessed no philanthropical insti­

tutions. The Old Testament demands mercy and

charity and contains individual ordi­

i. Among nances for the care of the poor (tithes,

Hebrews Deut. xiv. 28, 29, xxvi. 12 sqq.), but

and there was no organized philanthropy

Orientals. in Israel. There was no need of in­

stitutions because economic conditions

prevented poverty on a large scale. Post exilic Juda­

ism laid great stress upon almsgiving and there

was much xuutual aid among the Jews, especially in

Colonial Practise (¢ 1). Church and Voluntary Philan­thropies (§ 2). Defects Remedied by Organization (§ 3). Public Administration of Aid (§ 4). Principles of Work (§ 5). The Church's Higher Duties (§ 6). Conclusion (§ 7).

IV. Poor Relief, General Survey. The Ante Nicene Church (§ 1). The Post Nicene Church (§ 2). The Middle Ages (§ 3). The Reformation Period (§ 4). Three Modern Types (§ 5).

V. Poor Relief in the United States. Early Practise (§ 1). Modern Conditions and Methods (§ 2).

the Diaspora. Likewise there was no organized charity in Greece and Rome. The aid of needy citizens in Athens as well as the distribution of corn

in Rome were not acts of philanthropy, but of a political character. The idea of Christian Philan­thropy is approached most closely in the so called coller of the Romans, which aided their members by defraying funeral expenses, by distributing bread,

wine, or money, and by giving financial aid in cases of sickness, journeys, and other eventualities.

A real activity of charity developed first in the Christian congregations; but here, too, there were

487 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Snowden

Social service

no institutions for the reason that they were not needed. The members of the small congregations were able to fulfil their mutual duties

z. In the without institutions, and the poor who

Eastern were mostly slaves were provided for

Christian by their masters. These conditions

Church. changed with the fourth century in

consequence of the entrance of the

people generally into the Church and the economic

decline of the empire with its resultant pauperism.

The foundation of philanthropical institutions was

one of the results of meeting larger needs with larger

means. They originated in the Orient not earlier

than the middle of the fourth century. Basil

founded near Cwsarea a large institution for the

sick, and especially for lepers and strangers; and,

according to his letters, poorhouses at various

points in his diocese, which were administered by

rural bishops. At Antioch, during Chrysostom's

activity (c. 380), there existed a hospital for the

sick and a house for the poor before the city for

those who, suffering from elephantiasis and can­

cer, were forbidden to enter the city. In Constan­

tinople under Theodosius T. existed hospitals of

the churches. Chrysostom mentions an inn for

strangers, the necessary expenses for which were

defrayed by the church. The assumption that the

number of such institutions increased in the fifth

and sixth centuries is undoubtedly correct, owing

not only to their recognized value, but doubtless

also to the expansion of monasticism, and Johannes

Cassianus reports that the oriental monastical so­

cieties regularly supported xenodochia (houses for

strangers); but there is no positive proof. With the

growing number of institutions there naturally

took place a division of labor. The foundation of

Basil was at the same time an asylum for strangers,

an institution for the poor, a place of occupation, a

hospital, and a home for incurables. This combina­

tion was impossible for any length of time; and

according to the rich terminology of the Codex of

Justinian there was a differentiation into poor­

houses, foundling hospitals, orphanages, and homes

for the aged.

The Occident followed the example of the East somewhat later. Here philanthropical institutions seem to have been unknown until toward the end of the fourth century. Ambrose does not mention them and Augustine, in preaching of

3. The hospitality, clearly betrays that the

Occident. reception of strangers in private houses

was still necessary; but he, through

one of his presbyters, erected a xenodochium. About

Rome the first foundations proceeded from the

circle of men and women influenced by Jerome.

Later establishments are ascribed in the book of

the popes to Pope Symmachus, to Belisarius, the

general of Justinian, and Pelagius IT. In the let­

ters of Gregory T. xenodochia are mentioned several

times. Beside those, Gregory the Great knoyvs also

of smaller institutions of the same kind, called dear

conries, i.e., houses in which deacons cared for the

poor of their district. He mentions such in Rome,

Pesaro, and Naples. In Gaul Sulpicius Severus is

the first to be known to have founded a philan­

thropical institution by transforming his own house

into a hoapitium domus. The early institutions were founded and supported by the churches or by private individuals. The Church undoubtedly gathered the means of support from its members. It is not improbable that in the beginning the State for a time participated in the support; but it is certain that as early as 390, the xenodochia and kindred institutions were left entirely to the care and administration of the Church, and the State restricted its power to protect and advance them. It approved the principles of organization, com­plemented them with norms of administration, and granted privileges which the Church then in­corporated in legislation. The Roman emperors on the whole approved the episcopal administra­tion of the philanthropical institutions, as well as of the other estates of the churches, and invested the bishops with the duty as well as the right over the acquired bequests. Roman law considered philanthropical establishments as ecclesiastical in­stitutions and granted them and their administra­tors the same rights and privileges which the Church possessed in general. Concerning the inner ar­rangement and especially the personnel of the xeno­dochia there is only incomplete information. Their administration was in the hands of officers ap­pointed by the bishop. In the hospitals there were physicians and a great number of servants partly remunerated, such as probably the Alexandrine Parabolanoi (q.v.). More frequently the nurses seem to have been taken from the circles of ascetics. They lived after the manner of the monks. This seems to have been the case especially in the Occi­dent. Gregory the Great ordered that only religiosi should be elected deacons in Sardinia. The con­ceptions of monasterium and xenodochium seem to merge together. During the political disturbances from the second half of the fourth century, which finally led to the destruction of the Roman Empire, a great number of philanthropical institutions per­ished; but the institution as such continued in the East and the West. The number of xenodochia in medieval Constantinople, according to C. du Cange, amounted to thirty five. Under Gothic rule the hospital of Cwsarius of Arles was founded and the three hospitals of Symmachus were built while Theodoric the Great governed Rome. In the Frank­ish Empire Childebert and his wife Ulthrogota founded a large xenodochium at Lyons; the one mentioned by Gregory I. was built by Queen Brunehilde and Bishop Syagrius at Autun. Be­sides large institutions like these there can not have been wanting xenodochia in the country; for the Synods at Orleans (549) and at Chalon sur Sane (after 644) protected their possessions in the same way as that of churches and monasteries. Gregory of Tours mentions an asylum for lepers at Chalon­sur Sane; such are also said to have been at Ver­dun, Metz, and Maestricht (636), besides many other institutions at various places. Most widely dis­persed throughout the Frankish Empire were the small poorhouses (matriculce) in the different churches. In the course of time these matriculce developed into brotherhoods of lower church serv­ants, probably brought about by requiring of their inmates, if capable of work, small church services

Social Service THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG 468

in return for the alms received. The matriculce of the Frankish period seem originally to have be­longed regularly to churches or monasteries. From the Rule of Chrodegang it is evident that episco­pal churches possessed matriculcv also in the coun­try. The development of the law of church prop­erty in the Franxish period made it poosi' le for individual matreculce to develop nto in,eoendent institutions under administrative heads. They were allowed to acquire their own property and to dis­pose of it, subject to the will of the bishop. Male adult paupers seem to have been cared for in the matriculce, sofar as may be determined.

Although the philanthropical institutions trans­mitted from the ancient Church continued in the Frankish Empire, and their number, perhaps, even increased, yet after the migration of

4. Decline nations the period of the institutions in the closed owing to the economical trans­Middle formation of Europe. Commerce was Ages. interrupted, change of population ceased, industry was paralyzed, and cities emptied themselves into the agricultural districts; hence, the need of such institutions ceased with the exception of asylums for lepers and hos­pices on the mountain passes. From the time of Charles Martel and his sons and the alienation of ecclesiastical property the independent xenodoch­ium almost entirely disappeared, except in Italy. They existed in the passes of the Alps for the re­ception of pilgrims, also in the bishoprics of Mo­dena, Arezzo, Aquileia, partly the possession of the bishoprics and partly of the king or the landed no­bility. Although their purpose was still the care of the poor and the reception of strangers, the rev­enues were frequently not used for that purpose, or the institutions had fallen into decay; and the efforts on the part of the nobles for their restora­tion and the application of their means to their original object were in vain. Thus in Italy the his­torical continuity was almost though not quite broken; the hospital of the Middle Ages linked itself with the xenodochium of the early Church. North of the Alps, it is evident that the xenodochia as institutions became quite extinct, and in Britain the name does not occur. Into the gap, however, advanced the rising monastic philanthropy. This is already indicated in the rules of Benedict, and the restoration of monastical philanthropy was in­cluded in the reform of the monasteries under Charlemagne and Louis the Pious in the ninth century, succeeding that of decay. It is true, the monasteries again greatly degenerated in the latter times of the Carolingians, but the efforts of Charle­magne were not entirely futile. The statutes of Corbie, the property list of Priim, and other sources indicate monasteries here and there in which strangers and poor people found refuge and assist­ance. But its very limited extent goes to show that institutional philanthropy at the beginning of the Middle Ages had lost its importance. The practise of hospitality in the monasteries indeed was more extensive, but this was in the least degree benefi­cent.

The further reform of the monasteries in the tenth and eleventh centuries and the foundation

of the new orders had, no doubt, an influence upon

the growth of monastical philanthropy. In every

well arranged monastery there was

g. Rise of now an infirmary for the monks, a

Monastic hospital (hoapitale pauperum, elee­

and mosynaria) in which a number of

Cathedral paupers were continuously supported

Hospitals. and needy travelers received refresh­

ment, while well to do strangers were

cared for in a special hospice for clericals and

monks. But the support fell mainly to transients

and beggars and the aid to the permanently de­

pendent was negligible. Uhich of Zell reports

that in the Lent season of 1085, at Clugny,

1,700 poor were fed, but at the same time,

the number of permanently aided people in the

eleemosynaria of this extraordinarily rich monas­

tery amounted only to eighteen. To the hospitals of

the monasteries were then added those of the cathe­

drals. Canon 141 of the rule of Aix la Chapelle

expressly prescribed that every cathedral should

have also a hospital for the poor. The necessary

expenses were to be provided from the property

of the churches, and the canons had to contribute

a tithe of their revenues. Although these ordinances

may not have been followed strictly by all cathe­

dral churches, yet from that time in many of them

an asylum for the poor and numerous city hospitals

existed. The work in these hospitals was done in the

beginning by members of the monastery or the

cathedral, or at least taken in charge by them; at

a later time by the laymen of minor brotherhoods

and sisterhoods who crowded the monasteries and

cathedrals in great numbers. These formed a con­

vent by themselves and developed in the course of

time into an order by adopting a rule, most fre­

quently the so called rule of Augustine, and receiv­

ing a master or mistress. Thus there developed

from the monastical hospital the house of the hos­

pital brotherhood. Many of these hospitals re­

mained in the possession and under the supervision

of the monastery or cathedral to which they be­

longed, others acquired independence and became

again mother houses of new hospitals which were

consolidated with them. There arose hospital

orders, or monastical societies, the chief task of

which was the hospital service. The most famous

hospital orders are those of the knighthood. When

hospital service among the knights gradually re­

ceded behind the service of arms and was left to

the half lay brethren and half sisters of the third

estate of the order, the common hospital orders

took up their work. The largest among them were

the Orders of the Cross who had settled chiefly in

Italy, the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star

in Bohemia and Silesia (see CROSS, ORDERS OF), the

Knights of St. Anthony (see ANTHONY, SAINT,

ORDERS OF), and the Order of the Holy Spirit.

The houses of the hospital orders and brother 

hoods constituted the transition from the ecclesias­tical to the municipal hospitals, whereby only these institutions again acquired a more general signifi 

cance for the promotion of social conditions. Munic­ipal became most of the " Holy Spirit hospitals," which since the thirteenth century were founded in different places in Germany; they were the fruit

489 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA social service

of either private or municipal initiative, to meet the emergent needs of the rapidly growing cities, but were in the least degree hospitals

6. Munic  according to the later sense. The ad 

ipal ministration and care of inmates were Hospitals. as a rule in the hands of a corporation like an order, while others were under the direct administration of the municipal coun­cil which installed the hospital officers and in every case guarded the administration of the property. The inmates bought a place in these institutions for old age or were received through the favors of those having charge of the funds. Besides these, strangers, travelers, paupers, and the sick found in them a temporary refuge. Hospitals in the real sense there were none. Many cities beside the hospitals provided also a house for lepers before the gates. In France in 1225 there were 2,000 houses for lepers, in England 115. A special order was organized, the Order of the Breth­ren of the House of Lepers of St. Lazarus in Jerusa­lem, or, as it called itself at a later time, the Knight­hood of St. Lazarus (see LAzARmT8). After the thirteenth century there were numerous houses for the support and burial of destitute pilgrims, and Alpine hospices, and orphans and foundlings were received in hospitals. Foundling hospitals were numerous in Romance countries, but rare in Ger­many. The Elsingspittel in London was designed for the blind; in Paris Louis the Pious founded an institution for 300 blind people. Insane asylums are met with only toward the end of the Middle Ages, but they were penitentiaries rather than sanitariums. Fallen girls found refuge in the houses of the Order of St. Mary Magdalen and the Sisters of Penitence. The tendency toward municipal control increased until in the fifteenth century the appearance of civil, communal poor relief, which took place first in the hospitals. Local councils proceeded from the control of purely municipal foundations to that of the ecclesiastical, made necessary by their decline. The members of the hos­pital orders had become rich lords and the funds for the poor had become diverted to their luxury or to ecclesiastical objects, frequently not without fraud; as a result of which the cities took over the hospitals for their reform and administration.

At first the Reformation seems to have had a destructive rather than constructive influence upon philanthropy and philanthropical institutions, be 

cause of a sudden the old motives of 7. The almsgiving ceased before the appear­Reformation. ance of the new of spontaneous be 

nevolence (ut sup.). With the new stimulus the Lutheran Reformation revived the aim of communal poor relief. The institutional for the time retired into the background. The process of secularizing was to be carried out everywhere, the older hospitals were to be reorganized or in­corporated with the communal poor relief, or new ones, essentially asylums for the sick, were to be erected. In spite of the renewed motive, the abun­dant charitable activity, and the wide multiplica­tion of institutions, the worthy aim of the Refor­mation, which was the sufficient care of communal poor and the suppression of mendicancy, fell short

of realization and went down in the Thirty Years' War. More, however, was accomplished in the Re­formed Church. In Zurich and Geneva, poor relief was turned over wholly to the municipalities. By the restoration of the office of deacons the Reformed churches in the Netherlands and in France suc­ceeded in calling to life a philanthropy that was in many respects exemplary; especially the excel­lently managed orphanages in the former, which had a great influence upon charitable work in Germany, in particular upon August Hermann Franeke and in the nineteenth century upon Theodor Fliedner (qq.v.). In England medieval ecclesiastical phi­lanthropy was replaced by the parish care of the poor under the authorization of the State. The principle of the " work house " (ut sup.) established in England is still in force, but it has been supple­mented by the foundation of special institutions; especially, for poor children (the district and paro­chial schools) and for the destitute sick (the infir­maries and convalescent homes). In the Roman Catholic Church, the Council of Trent commended the medieval type of the institutions to the special care of the bishops, but communal poor relief was not restored, and philanthropy continued pre­eminently institutional. It is to the credit of that Church that after the Reformation great service has been rendered; new institutions and new orders have been added, especially in France, Italy, and Spain. The main defects to be pointed out are the diversion of funds to prelates and nobles, and the want of systematic efficiency and unity. The Lu­theran Church received a new impetus from Piet­ism. The orphans' home in Halle, the great work of Francke, gave rise to many similar foundations; but the zeal soon slackened contemporaneously with State assumption of the entire sphere of poor­relief. By an edict of July, 1774, the government of Prussia was entrusted with the supervision of the pious bodies and all benevolent institutions, especially hospitals, orphanages, and poorhouses. Consequently numerous philanthropical institu­tions of the Church were secularized.

The humanism of the Enlightenment presented the first idea of a rational philanthropy, revolution­izing the same not only in Protestant 

8. Human  ism but caught up as the keynote also ism and in Roman Catholic domains. The in­Modera terest aroused by an abundant human­Philan  istic current literature toward the close thropy. of the eighteenth century resulted in numerous establishments, beginning with the general charitable institution at Hamburg in 1788. Orthodox Christianity was stimulated by the influence and began to develop a more strenu­ous activity. The Society of Christianity of Basel, founded in 1780, cultivated not only the distribu­tion of Bibles and tracts, but also the care of the poor and sick, training institutions, and the like. The distress on account of the wars of French con­quest and liberation called to life institutions of various kinds for the alleviation of pain and dis. tress, and with the reawakening of the Christian sense, with the gradual invigoration of churchly life, there went hand in hand a revival of philan­thropy which called into existence a multitude of