Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/716

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CHR—CHR

falling into sin in violation of the precepts of religion, but they are too apt to think that a man who has embraced a true faith will therefore be made a good moral man. This erroneous idea appears in its most extreme form in the views of those who have been called Antinomians, and who have appeared in all ages of the church from apostolic times down to our own day. They appear to believe that who ever has faith is thereby lifted into a new life to which the moral laws of the old life are inapplicable, and are there fore privileged to do without censure or danger what others

would be condemned for.

Nothing perhaps has tended more thoroughly to corrupt Christianity than the introduction into it of superstitions which are really pagan themselves, or have been suggested by pagan practices. Paganism, unable to oppose Christianity successfully, has done much to corrupt it, and in numberless ways has made inroads upon its purity.

The corruptions which entered into Christianity from Judaism have already been noticed, and the corrupting effects of the reproduction of the symbolic temple worship and the Jewish idea of priesthood need not be again referred to. It only remains to speak of those corruptions which have arisen from the contact of Christianity with pagan philosophy. The special corruptions which have arisen from this contact have been called heresies, and have been of various kinds and degrees, but of these we need not speak. A more subtle influence, and one to be even more jealously guarded against, is the transformation of Christianity itself into an intellectual system or philosophy, or the supposition that it is the intellectual side of Christianity which is the only one or the chief. The inevitable tendency of such an impulse is to remove Christianity as a system to be apprehended from the Christian people, and to reduce their relation to it to a submissive assent to Christian doctrine as that is manufactured for them by the dogmatic machinery of the church. And thus, in place of that whole-hearted trust w r hich waits for personal illumination, there is on the side of the people a blindfold assent, and on the other side the claim to an infallible system of intellectual truth.

The continual and steady growth of Christianity, its vigorous life in spite of various seasons of unavoidable ebb and notwithstanding the presence of all these and other sources of corruption, and its continual rejuvenescence, are no ordinary proof of its divine origin as well as of its supreme fitness for the position in the world which it claims to occupy.


See the various hand-books of clmrch history, especially those of Gieseler, Neander, and Dollinger ; Dean Milman s History of Christianity, and History of Latin Christianity ; Dollinger s Hcid- enthum und Judenthum; Ritschl s Entstchung dcr Alt-Katholischcn Kirche; Rothe s A nfang. d. Christl. Kirche.

(t. m. l.)






CHRISTIANSAND, a fortified seaport town of South Norway, capital of a stift of the same name, on a fiord of the Skagerrack, in 58 8 N. lat. and 8 3 E. long. The town, which is surrounded on three sides by water, is defended by the fort of Fredericksholm, at the mouth of a deep and well sheltered harbour. The houses, mostly of painted wood, are regularly built, and the streets are wide. Christiansand has a fine cathedral, and a cathedral school ; it is a naval station, and the seat of a bishop, and of a stiftsamtmand or governor of the province. The principal branches of industry are tanning, tobacco-manufacture, ship-building, dyeing, and brewing, and the exportation of timber, pitch, skins, copper and iron, fish, and lob sters. The mackerel and salmon brought to the harbour are packed in ice on their arrival, and shipped mostly to England. The number of fresh mackerel exported in 1874 was 897,110, value 5441, inclusive of the expense of ice and packing ; of salmon, 209,131 lb, value .9273 ; of lobsters the number exported was 201,980. The number of British ships in cargo and in ballast at Christiansand in 1873 was 203. The town was founded in 1641 by Chris tian IV., after whom it was named. In 1807 it was held for a time by the British. Population (1870), 11,4G8.

CHRISTIANSTAD, a town in the south of Sweden in 56 2 N. lat. and 14 9 E., long., the capital of the laen of the same name, stands on a lake formed by the widening out of the Helge River, in a swampy situation, about ten miles from the shores of the Baltic. At the mouth of the river is the village of Ahus, the port of Christianstad. The town of Christianstad, which consists chiefly of wooden structures, contains a fine church, a high school, and an arsenal, and is the residence of the chief governor of the laeu. The manufactures are leather, woollen goods, gloves, and tobacco ; and there is some trade in corn. Christianstad was founded and strongly fortified in 1614 by Christian IV. of Denmark ; in 1658 it was ceded to Sweden at the peace of Roskilde ; in 1676 it was taken by Christian V. ; but iu 1678 it was again acquired by Sweden. Here began the revolution that was the means of establishing the power of Gustavus III. in Sweden. Population, 6599.

CHRISTIANSUND, a seaport town on the west coast of Norway, in the amt of Romsdal, 85 miles W.S.W. of Trondhjem, in 63 3 N. lat. and 7 40 E. long. It is built on three small islands, by which its harbour is enclosed. The chief exports are wood, fish, and fish products. Till 1742 Christiansund was called Lille-Fosen. Population, 5709.

CHRISTINA (1626-1689), queen of Sweden, was the second daughter of Gustavus Adolphus and Mary Eleanor of Brandenburg. Disappointed in his hopes of male off spring, her great father reared her in virile fashion, and left her, on his departure for Germany (1630), in the hands of Axel Oxenstiern, the famous chancellor, and of Johannes Matthioe, his own almoner, who was to ground her in sciences and in Latin and Greek.

The battle of Lu:tzen placed Christina on the throne in her

sixth year. She was proclaimed queen without delay, but the government was vested in a council of regency, com posed of the five chief dignitaries of the kingdom, with Oxenstiern at their head. Placed under the care of her aunt Catharine, the countess-palatine, the little queen made rapid progress in the direction indicated by Gustavus. At ten years old she dressed usually in boy s clothes, and was wont to hunt and to go long journeys on foot and on horseback ; and she found means, in the midst of these occupations, to acquire several sciences and modern languages, in addition to the classical tongues. In 1636 Oxenstiern returned from Germany, and again assumed the direction of affairs ; and from him, her father s friend and minister, Christina received the ablest lessons in state-craft and the art of government that the age could furnish. At sixteen, the confidence reposed in her was such, that she was generally solicited to enter on the exercise of her functions as queen regnant. This proposal she declined, however, nor would she listen to any renewal of it till two years later (1644), when the conduct of the state was placed in her hands. For a time all went well. The members of the council of regency were confirmed in their places ; the kingdom w r as flourishing within and without ; the war with Denmark and Germany promised to bear good fruits. Christina, however, had determined on peace , in this she was opposed by Oxenstiern ; but during the following year a treaty was signed with Den

mark exceedingly advantageous to Sweden. Germany was