Protestantism in France.
An inquiry into French Protestantism (says a writer in an English secular review is met at the threshold by this singular paradox, that while the Protestant spirit has taken possession of France, Protestantism as a form of church life is declining. On the one hand, ' its influence so increases that Protestants are to be found in all sorts of positions of authority and power, far out of proportion to their estimated numerical strength ;on the other hand its temples are empty of worshippers and the number of members, in both its confessions, diminishes with ominous rapidity.
France is governed by the combined authority of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, whose members, taken together, number 880 ; 100 are said to be Protestants, 70 or 80 of whom are in the Chamber of Deputies. As the population of France is over 38,000,000, if the Protestant Deputies w^re solely the representatives of their co-religion-ists, the Protestant population of France ought to be at least 5,000,000, whereas it is only 650,000, and that is a computation twenty years old, the probability being that it is now nearer 600,000. According to this the political influence of Protestantism in France is nearly seven and a half times as great as might be expected from the actual number of its professed adherents.
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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 21, 12 June 1902, Page 29
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220Protestantism in France. New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 21, 12 June 1902, Page 29
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