The Berlin correspondent of the Times continues the contro- versy
as to the religious condition of Germany by describing the German Protestant Association, a society which is in fact a Church with this for creed, "I believe Christian morality to be the highest morality yet discovered." The Church accepts persons without dogmatic creeds, and, as far as we can perceive, without any assertion of their belief in God, though most of the members do believe in Him. The society does not, apparently, make much way, the Radical journals simply asking why men who only profess to accept a particular system of morals should burden themselves with adhesion to a Church. It is remarkable that this idea of accepting the Christian morality as a basis of union, while rejecting Christian belief, wins no ground in England. The idea among English sceptics is that morality is not the strong, but the weak point of Christianity ; that although perfect as to the duty of benevolence and as to sexual relations, Christian morality is on many points too feminine, too deficient in activity and muscle. It would be difficult, they say, to prove patriotism from the Gospel, and still more difficult to show that Cromwell was not a violent reprobate, and Newton a person without an idea of the meaning of the divine system.
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