Is THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 427 



religious life and institutions of different countries. What a dif- 

 ference there is in religion from this point of view in the great 

 centers, such as Rome, St. Petersburg, Berlin, London, Edinburgh, 

 New York! That man would go far astray who should imdertake 

 to use any one of these as a test of any or of all the others. 



Let us consider, for example, the question of participation in 

 the services of the Church. Rome has apparently, from a Protes- 

 tant point of view, an abnormal number of churches, and in these 

 churches an extraordinary number of chapels and altars. The 

 reason for this is that there is an immense number of clergy in 

 Rome, and all these altars are needed that they may perform the 

 most important of their duties — the sacrifice of the mass. The 

 churches, chapels, and altars are not erected for the people merely 

 — if so, vastly fewer would be necessary — but for the priests who 

 sacrifice for the people even when they are absent. Berlin has 

 apparently very few churches, and these are not always well at- 

 tended by the people, and are used infrequently except on Sun- 

 days. Judging from this, it would be a very irreligious city; 

 but any one who really knows Berlin would not say that it is less 

 religious than Rome. The religion of the German people finds 

 its expression in a mystic type of personal piety and of family 

 and social life; it maintains and propagates itself without frequent 

 attendance upon public worship. 



In London regular attendance upon public worship is com- 

 monly regarded as indispensable for the maintenance of the Chris- 

 tian religion. Therefore Christian people frequent the churches 

 to an extent that is unknown on the continent of Europe. But 

 to make the British habit of frequenting the Church for public 

 worship a test of the vitality of the Christian religion in the 

 great cities of the Continent would be altogether unjust and 

 untrue. The historical development of religion in Great Brit- 

 ain has brought about an entirely different state of affairs there 

 from that which we find everywhere else in the world. The situ- 

 ation in Great Britain is therefore special, peculiar, and, one might 

 say, abnormal as compared with the situation in other parts of the 

 world. In the United States the original population was chiefly 

 British, and therefore followed British methods in religion. But 

 in the present century our land, and especially our cities, have filled 

 up with a population from the continent of Europe, bringing with 

 them Continental methods of worship which would not yield to or 

 readily adopt British methods. Intermarriage with the British 

 stock and familiar converse in society have tended to assimilation, 

 and therefore the situation has gradually and inevitably emerged 

 that the Christianity of ISTew York and Chicago and our other great 



