PROTESTANTISM IN GERMANY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 174, 28 July 1876, Page 12

PROTESTANTISM IN GERMANY.

Commenting on the Culturkampf, a contemporary says: If tlie Church were a human institution she mu3t necessarily disappear under the influence of such an ordeal. But the circumstances show that she is only being purified, rendered more united and steadily strengthened, by the same influence, under but a further application of which rher, testantism is fast disappearing. Her trials are producing numerous conversions of hitherto luke-warm Catholics, and are winning other* from the ranks of heresy, whilst Protestantism is rapidly fading out of" existence. The statistics of baptisms and marriages accompanied by the religious ceremony in the city of Berlin for the second quarter of 1875, compared with those of the same quarter of 1874, will bear out this latter statement. The Protestant baptisms of last year included only 3,232 boys 3,290 girls, against 5,087 boys and 4,955 girls in 1874, showing a total decrease of 3,520, though the entire number of births was greater during the second quarter of last year than that in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The decrease in marriages accompanied by the religious ceremony was 2,157, these being last year only 1,162, while the receivers of the Lord's Supperhave fallen from 29,541 to 1C,195. It is not wonderful that German Protestants like Gauvin should awaken to the truth that this war against the Catholic Church is a war against Christianity. As we have said, the enemy has once more outwitted himself in in his warfare against God and his Church. Bismarck has, unintentionally, of course, lent a hand to the Pope in extirpatini liberal Catholicism and in recalling honest Protestants to the faith, and he has helped tocarry i"to effect even the teachings of the Syllabus and of the Vatican Council. Our enemies are slow in taking the advice of the sage Gamaliel : " Refrain from those men and let them alone ; for if their design or work be of men, it will full to nothing ; but if it be of God, you are not able to destroy it, lest, perhaps, you be found to oppose God." That it is of God is manifest from its having withstood the hostile attacks of the world, and that it will withstand them we have the assurance of Christ himself : " And the rain fell and the floods came, and they beat upon that house ; and it fell not, for it was iounded on a rock."