CHAPTER V

CHRISTIAN NURTUBE

We pass over the journey to Europe and other
incidents of Bushnell's Kfe in order to speak con-
secutively of the theological treatises which came
one after another from his busy pen. The most
important of all, "Christian Nurture," was pub-
lished in 1846. It had been, however, ten years in
preparation, having had its genesis in an article on
" Eevivals of Eeligion," published in 1836 in the
" Christian Spectator." Its specific aim was to es-
tablish the proposition, " That the child is to grow
up a Christian, and never know himself as being
otherwise." A very simple statement, but it shook
New England theology to its foundations. The
phrase, by its very form, challenged the extreme
individualism into which the churches had lapsed,
and recalled them to those organic relations be-
tween parents and children which are recognized
in the historic churches, and which also had been
recognized to a certain extent by the churches
of New England before Edwards. As has hap-
pened before in theological controversy, the heresy
with which Bushnell was charged in connection
with this subject was in fact a return to an older
orthodoxy. It is also a fact that those who were



68 HORACE BUSHNELL

loudest in making the charge regarded themselves
as upholders of this older orthodoxy. They iden-
tified BushneU with the " New Light " party, but
his book in the main fell within the lines of the
older school to which the critics supposed that they
belonged.
