DECAY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14889, 31 January 1914, Page 16

DECAY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

Tlio account given by the Berlin_correspondent of the 'Christian World" of the condition of religion among tho members of tho State Protestant Church makes very painful reading and goes to prove (says the "Catholic Times") the decadence of religious belief in the non-Catholic population, especially of the groat towns. Iv the city of Berlin, where there are two million Protestants, there are 68 churches, with sitting accommodation for 86,000 worshippers. A census of church attendance was taken last Trinity Suu-

day, and tho number at Divino service was only 11,252 persons! At Chemnitz, in Saxony, there are 300,000 Protestants, and the worshippers at church on that Sunday also were 2348 persons! Why is this falling off? Reasons given in explanation are that the working classes have come to regard the parsons as being enemies of the toilers' aemand for social improvement: that the educated class are notoriously unbelievers : that the parsons themselves do not believe wljat they preach in the pulpit; and that Socialism and tho infidel newspaper press are sapping tho foundations of Christian doctrine. Secession from tho organised State Church is now being advocated as a programme, and all expenses are being paid by a Secessisn Committee: in i Germany men have to notify the authorities -f the State of any change of belief. The movement of seceding from the Protestant Church is rapidly assuming large proportions, and bids fair in no short time to make of the masses of the peonle a creedless crowd. And ali the time Militarism, with its unbearable burdens, is driving the people Into Germany has rough times ahead.