PROTESTANTISM IN PRUSSIA. T HE Prussian correspondent of the Times gave
on Monday a very interesting account of the present position of the Prussian Evangelical Church. A certain measure of self- government has been conceded to the Synods, mainly at the instance of a party which the Times' correspondent calls the Religious Liberals, in contradistinction to the Irreligious Liberals who are "indifferent or else absolutely hostile to the Church," and disdain to use the rights with which they are invested by the new Constitution. The nearest English equivalents to these terms, perhaps, are the Broad-Church party and the Rationalist party. The Broad-Church party wished to modify the dogma and liturgy of the Evangelical Church, and in order to effect this object they demanded larger powers for the Synods. Now that these have been obtained, they find that they are unable to make any use of them. They hoped to secure the support of the Rationalist party, and thus to bear down orthodox opposition. But the Rationalist party feel no interest in the half-and-half reforms which would satisfy the Broad-Churchmen, They simply abstain from voting, and the consequence is that the Broad-Churchmen are outnumbered by the orthodox party, and everything remains as it was The Evangelical clergy, according to the Times' correspondent, are mainly orthodox. Forty years ago it was just the other way. The clergy were under the influence of Strauss and Schleier- rnacher, and for a time they and the laity seemed to be of one mind. This union was broken by the speed with which the laity wont on in the direction of atheism. If religion was to be altogether abolished, it wee plain that there would be no place for the ministers of religion, and this conviction probably gave additional force to the rebound in the direction of orthodoxy which began after 1848. The men who were students in the period of reaction now fill the Prussian pulpits, and among the clergy the Broad Churchmen are reduced to a small minority. The governing body in the Evan- gelical Church is chiefly anxious to prevent the ortho- dox and the Broad-Church clergy from coming to blows. Dr. Sydow, who was deprived by his provincial Consistory for denying the divinity of Christ, was reinstated on appeal to the Supreme Consietory, and the orthodox clergy speak of the Supreme Consiatory in very much the same tone as that which the High-Church clergy in England use towards the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. As the members of the Synods are elected by household suffrage, the erthodox clergy would soon find the formularies on which they rest cut from under them if the members of the Synod really repre- sented their nominal constituents. But as only the Broad Church and the orthodox section of the electorate take the trouble to vote, the Synods, with scarcely an exception, remain orthodox. So, too, do most of the congregations, because, as the Times' correspondent remarks, with reference to a recent election of a Broad-Churchman to the incumbency of a church in Berlin, the religious Liberals, "though they took the ex- ceptional trouble of going to the poll, are not in the habit of , attending Divine service."
The quarrel of the Prussian Government with the Roman Catholic Church was the more popular with the Evangelical laity that they saw in it a means of weakening the influence of the Evangelical clergy. The "black Ultramontanee," as they called their own ministers, were really more hateful to them than the Roman Catholic priesthood. With the latter they had nothing to do ; with the former they could not help coming occasionally in contact. Two of the measures nomi- nally timed at the Roman Catholics, the laws making baptism and marriage in church optional ceremonies, did really far greater injury to the Evangelical ministers. The Roman .Catholic clergy have a moral hold over their people which the Evangelical clergy have altogether lost. To the Roman Catholic laity, baptism is something different from registration, and a marriage by a priest has a moral validity whieh a merely civil marriage lacks. Consequently, when the law left the laity free to marry without the intervention of any minister of religion, and free to register their children without having them bap- tized, Roman Catholic practice underwent no change. If man were a Roman Catholic from conviction, he thought baptism and marriage by a priest as essential as ever. If Ire were a Roman Catholic from interest or complaisance, it was indispensable that he should appear to think them as essential as ever. But an Evangelical layman, not in the least believing in baptism or marriage by a minister of religion except as ceremonies enjoined •by the State, ceased altogether to value them when the State ceased to enjoin them. Thus the Evan- gelical clergy were speedily forced to acknowledge to them- selves how groat the gulf between them and the laity was. So long as men continued to come to church to be married and to bring their children to church to be baptized, the clergy could ignore the want of religious belief among their flocks. But when the sheep, on being told that they need not come near the fold unless they like, immediately elect to wander, it is impossible for the shepherds to conceal from themselves how the case stands. This explains the language 'used by one of the clergy at a meeting in Berlin, of which the Times' correspondent gives some account. "These are serious times for the Church. The protection of the civil power is Do longer awarded to ,us to anything like the extent it formerly was.", That is to say, the civil power no longer says to the
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,Evangelical laity, 'You must be married y an Evangelical minister, and you must have your children baptised by an Evangelical minister.' "The great mass of the people," Dr. Grau goes on, "is either indifferent or openly hostile to doctrinal teaching." These are not new facts, but they are facts which are new to the Evangelical clergy. Their eyes have seareely been opened long enough to make them alive to the causes of this general rejection of their teaching. The complete identity between the Government and the Evangelical Church, which existed from the date of its formation down to the recent changes in the law, has evidently not raised the Church in the estimation of the laity. In learning to regard the Church as a function of the State, they have learnt to accept its suppres- sion as 4 State function as equivalent to its suppression alto- gether. So long as the clergy retained a double character, and were officers of the Government as well as ministers of religion, it was possible for them to suppose that they were respected in both characters. Now that they have ceased to be officers of the Government, they find that they have ceased to be respected, and they cannot fight against the conclusion that it is only as officers of the Government that they have been re- spected hitherto. Their first impulse, and it is not an unnatural one, is to see if they cannot regain wth_leci_r was Tp,eopsoitirtioend.inTtlihiee epeeeh of the Emperor of Germany, is 1, Standard, was apparently made in answer to an address con- ceived in this spirit. He agrees with the clergy who presented it, "that the Church must remain." Perhaps the Emperor was not unwilling that this should be taken to mean some- thing more than it will be allowed to mean when it comes to be translated into action. The Emperor dislikes the changes that have weakened the hold of the clergy on the laity, and he is at present anxious that these changes shall not be pushed any further. The clergy are probably of opinion that the Church cannot remain unless it be restored to something like its former pesition, and if they are convinced of this they will naturally be disposed to treat an assurance that the Church must remain as tantamount to a promise that the Church shall be restored. How small a prospect there really is of anything of the kind coming to pass may be seen from the reference made by the Emperor to the Education Bill which the Government are about to introduce. "I hope,' be said, "that the result of the Ministerial deliberation will be according to my wishes. Count upon me." Count upon me for what ? For always wishing the right thing—at least, so we read it—not in the least for having any power of giving effect to his wishes. A Church which has, strictly speaking, no laity—Which is the pre- sent condition of the Prussian Evangelical Church—is not a body that is likely to attract or to be seriously benefited by Government patronage. No doubt if the clergy are content that the people should remain either indifferently or openly hostile to their teaching, they might retain that minimum of Government countenance which can be given them without exciting any lay opposition. But if they want to become in any sense a spiritual power in Prussia, it is their own arm, and not the arm of the Government, that must help them, Spiritual teaching must depend for acceptance on some intrinsic quality in itself. Whether the Prussian Evangelical clergy have got anything to teach which the laity will care to hoar, is the real question CM which their future depends. That there will eventually be a reaction in the direction of religious belief even among these dry bones—and behold, they are very dry—of the Protestant laity of Prussia is probable enough, but whether the Evangelical clergy will in any way reap the harvest is a wholly different question. If they do reap it, it will certainly not be in virtue of that official support to which they look baels
with such regret.
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