SLAVIC MISSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES:
Missions founded in the interests of evangelism among the Bohemians who had emigrated to the
United States, and later extended to include Poles and Hungarian Slovaks. There are already in this country nearly three millions of these people, many of them contiguous, accessible, and responsive to missionary effort. On coming to America multitudes of the Slavic race abandoned the formal adherence which in Europe they had preserved to the Roman Catholic Church, and, finding here unrestricted religious liberty, drifted from religious indifference into every phase of unbelief. The danger to the body politic from the existence of an element of the population with these tendencies, awakened the attention of the thoughtful and religious. The founder of the first mission was Charles Terry Collins (d. Dec. 21, 1883), pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, Cleveland, Ohio, adjacent to whose parish were living, in 1880, 25,000 of the 250,000 Bohemians then in the United States. He took counsel with Dr. Albert Henry Schauffler (q.v.), then recently returned from service in Bohemia and Moravia, who undertook the conduct of the mission in
1882. Dr. Schauffler's pioneer work in Bohemia, his mastery of the language and of kindred dialects, and his passion for souls amply qualified him to organize and develop this new and important field. He was, moreover, the only American Protestant missionary linguistically qualified to carry on the work. Olivet Chapel, of which he accepted the pastorate, was at first made the center of his labors, but soon proved too distant from the chief Bohemian colony and a new location was secured. The Congregational Churches of the city were interested, and in June, 1883, adopted the work as their own, made an appropriation, and enlisted the aid of the denominational Home Missionary Society. The Bohemian Mission Board of Cleveland, Ohio, was incorporated Mar. 22, 1884, with representatives from each Congregational Church in the city which chose to elect such representatives. Meanwhile, in
1883, Dr. Schauffler had been commissioned by the Home Missionary Society superintendent of Slavic Missions in the United States, and among his duties was included that of surveying the centers of Slavic colonization in the United States with a view to future evangelization. The local mission in Cleveland was carried on in a place secured for it, and services were conducted in Bohemian and English, while a Sunday-school was also instituted. Interdenominational help was secured for the purchase of a lot and the erection of a church on Broadway, in the center of the colony; the building was dedicated Jan. 1, 1885, and was named " Bethlehem " after the church in which John Huss preached in Prague. A church was organized with fifty-nine members on Mar. 28, 1888 — the first Bohemian Congregational church in the United States, from which three missions or branches have since been formed, Cyril Mission (1890), Immanuel Mission (1904), and Mizpala (1908), all in Cleveland. This church carries on a dual work with separate membership, pastorate, and services in Bohemian and English.
In accordance with the general duties of the superintendent mentioned above, Chicago was visited, the claims of the fifty thousand Bohemians of that city and vicinity were presented, and a mission organization was effected in 1884 with the
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Slavery Sleidanus
assistance of Professor Samuel Ives Curtiss and Deacon C. F. Gates. The Rev. Edwin A. Adams, who had been an associate with Dr. Schauffler in Bohemia, was placed in charge of the Bohemian Mission in Chicago. The result is a church reporting about 200 members, with a Sunday-school having an average attendance of 500. Farther extension of this work appears in the opening of missions to this people at St. Louis (1889), Silver Lake, Minn. (1890), Milwaukee, Wis. (1890), Crete, Neb. (1895), St. Paul, Minn. (1895), and Vining, Iowa (1899). The Presbyterians have missions for the Bohemians at Pittsburg, Pa., and at Wisconsin, South Dakota.
Outside of Cleveland and Chicago, the first Slavic mission was the outgrowth of Polish Sunday-school work maintained chiefly by the First Congregational Church at Detroit, Mich., where in May, 1892, there was formed the first Protestant Polish church in the United States. The second Polish mission was undertaken in a large community contiguous to Bethlehem, Cleveland, Ohio, where Mizpah Chapel was erected in 1893 and work carried on with the concurrent use of four languages, Polish, Bohemian, German, and English. Under Congregational direction Polish missions have been attempted in Toledo, Ohio, Bay City, Mich., and in the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Work has also been done by the Baptists at Buffalo, by the Methodists at Baltimore and Detroit, and by the United Presbyterians at Pittsburg. Another interesting and successful work was begun Aug., 1890, at Braddock, Pa., among the Hungarian Slovaks — a Slavic people resident in Hungary prior to the advent of the Magyar — which resulted in 1896 in the organization of a church with 119 members, and in the rapid extension of Slovak mission work to all the suburbs of Pittsburg, Pa.
Such expansion required additional workers, trained and educated in the Slavic and English languages, for thus far the converts had but a meager education. The Slavic Department of Oberlin Seminary was instituted in 1885, and has since been amply endowed, to educate a sufficient ministerial force; and also The Schauffler Missionary Training School of Cleveland, Ohio, was established (1886) — also endowed — for the training of Slavic women as missionaries and Biblereaders, through whom the homes of the foreign population may be reached, as can not be prudently done by men.
The estimated force (1911) of trained missionary workers is 125, occupying sixty church buildings, in thirteen different states, and working for five different denominations. There are, also, religious papers, published weekly and widely circulated, in Bohemian and Polish. It is everywhere confessed, by those who are opposed, as well as by friends of this work, that these missions have exerted a great and uplifting influence for good morals, good citizenship, and a high ideal of religious life, wherever established. Francis Metherall Whttlock.
Bibliography: Consult the reports of Dr. Schauffler in The Home Missionary Magazine, New York; and the Reports of the Congregational Home Missionary Society, 1884 sqq.
SLAVS, CONVERSION OF THE. See Cyril and Methodius; Mieczyslaw; and Wenzel, Saint.
SLEIDANUS, slai-de'nus, JOHANNES: Historiographer of the German Reformation; b. at Schleiden (35 m. s.w. of Cologne) probably in 1506; d. at Strasburg Oct. 31, 1556. His family name was Philippi. He was educated at Liege and apparently at Cologne and Lou vain, and by 1530 was an Erasmian humanist, although professing deep admiration for Melanchthon. In 1533 he took up his residence in France, where he occupied a number of positions which brought him into contact with the anti-Hapsburg policy of Francis I., who sought alliance with German Protestantism. During this same period Sleidanus received from the works and personal letters of Calvin an influence which modified his entire outlook on life, and he became deeply interested in the importance of modern history for the statesman. In 1537 he published at Paris his epitome of Froissart's chronicle under the title Frossardi historiarum opus omne, jam primum
et breviter collectum, et Latino sermone redditum (Eng. transl. by P Golding, London, 1608), and three years later was secretly commissioned to watch a delegate sent to the diet of Hagenau to prevent an alliance of the Schmalkald League, especially Philip of Hesse, with Charles V On his return he wrote, under the pseudonym of Baptista Lasdenus, an attack upon the pope entitled Oration von des Bapstumbs auffkomen und abnemen (Strasburg [?], 1541), following this with two similar " orations " (Augsburg [?], 1542; Strasburg, 1544). In 1541 Sleidanus was sent as interpreter on a second fruitless mission, this time directly to the leaders of the Scbffnalkald League. His position was then complicated by the repression of French Protestantism by Francis I., but though he spent some time in Germany, he returned to France, whence, after accompanying Cardinal Jean du Bellay in a vain effort to attend the Diet of Speier in 1544, he was apparently sent on a secret mission to Germany to win the Schmalkald League to alliance with France, thenceforth residing at Strasburg.
Butzer, whose shorter catechism Sleidanus- had translated into Latin in 1544, now urged Landgrave Philip to appoint the statesman historiographer of the Reformation, for which he had long been gathering material. The work was delayed, however, by the French war, and in the mean while Sleidanus prepared a Latin translation of Philippe de Comines' chronicle under the title De rebus gestis Ludovici undecimi, Galliarum regis, et Caroli Burgundies duds (Strasburg, 1545). In 1545 he was sent on another fruitless mission to England, and this interruption was followed by another French war, but in 1551 he was promised an annual pension by Edward VI. and Cranmer. From the autumn of 1551 to Apr., 1552, he was an envoy at Trent, and took part in an embassy to Henry II., while in May, 1554, he was the representative of Strasburg at a conference held at Naumburg. During all this time he had labored on his history, despite poverty and scanty material, and in 1555 it appeared at Strasburg under the title De statu religionis et reipublicm, Carolo Quinto Ccesare, commentarii (Eng. transl. by J. Daus, A Famouse Chronicle of owe Time, Galled Sleidanes Commentaries, London, 1560, and E. Bohun, The General History of the Reforma-
Smalley Smith