556 



LUTHERANS. 



wishes to adhere to the old landmarks of Lu- 

 theranism, and, in particular, to the symbolical 

 books, and those who are desirous to abandon 

 the strictly Lutheran character of the church. 

 These movements are likely to affect ere long 

 to a considerable degree the condition of all the 

 Lutheran State churches. Where the voice 

 of the laity has made itself heard, it has been 

 in most instances in favor of abandoning the 

 Lutheran character of the church. Many of 

 the State churches have been, on this account, 

 disturbed by an immense agitation, and none 

 more so than the church of the kingdom of 

 Hanover, where the Government, in union 

 with the consistory of the capital, attempted 

 the introduction of the catechism of Luther 

 into the Lutheran schools of the kingdom, and 

 raised thereby such an opposition, that at length 

 it was deemed wiser to abandon all attempts 

 at compulsion, and permit every congregation 

 to introduce the catechism or not. In Prussia 

 and the other States which have adhered to 

 the United Evangelical Church, there are small 

 Independent Lutheran churches, which have 

 seceded from the State churches, in order to 

 maintain a pure Lutheran confession. This Free 

 Church counts in Prussia a population of about 

 40,000 souls, but has recently split again into 

 two parties, one of which favors the Presby- 

 terian, and the other a Congregational form of 

 Church Government. The Lutheran Church 

 in Austria counts, according to the census of 

 1857, a population of 1,218,831 souls, but the 

 great majority of the boards of the church do 

 not acknowledge the obligatory character of the 

 old confession of faith, and the synods of Hun- 

 gary have declared in favor of a union with the 

 Reformed Church. 



In France the Lutheran Church, which there, 

 as in Austria, is officially designated as the 

 Church of the Confession of Augsburg, counted 

 in 1862, 44 consistories, 229 parishes, 197 sta- 

 tions, 390 oratories, 658 schools, 261 official 

 pastors, 36 vicars and chaplains. This church 

 has been, during the year 1862, greatly dis- 

 tracted by a hot controversy between the or- 

 thodox and the liberal (Rationalistic) school. 

 The latter school denies the inspiration of the 

 Scriptures, and rejects the authenticity of a 

 number of books of both Testaments. Their 

 chief seat is Strasburg, where they are strongly 

 represented in the theological seminary, and 

 where they publish an able organ, the Nouvelle 

 Revue de Theologie. The election of the editor 

 of this review, Colani, as professor of the 

 Theological Seminary, called forth a very ani- 

 mated literary controversy, and an earnest op- 

 position on the part of several members of the 

 supreme consistory, and the year 1862 closed 

 without any abatement of the excitement pre- 

 vailing in the Church. 



In Sweden a dissatisfaction is spreading in 

 the Lutheran State Church with regard to the 

 servile condition in which it finds itself in rela- 



tion to the State. A High Church paper has 

 declared in the name of its party that if the 

 church was unable to exclude the Rationalistic 

 element, the High Churchmen would secede 

 and organize an independent church. Many of 

 the Evangelical clergymen envy the untram- 

 melled position in which the Baptists and 

 other free denominations find themselves, and 

 are desirous of obtaining an equal freedom 

 from the State. All the church press begins to 

 give more attention to this subject, and a thor- 

 ough change, in the relation between Church 

 and State is considered inevitable. The Gov- 

 ernment favors a change, and has laid before 

 the Swedish diet a bill introducing certain re- 

 forms into the Church, and, in particular, pro- 

 viding for the regular convocation of General 

 Church Synods. 



Russia has a Lutheran population of more 

 than three and a half millions. The members 

 of the Lutheran Church, with the exception of 

 the entirely Lutheran provinces in the north- 

 west, some Lutheran colonies in the south and 

 the large cities, are mostly so scattered that it 

 is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for 

 them to keep up their connection with the 

 Church. Hundreds of thousands of members 

 have thus been lost to Protestantism. To 

 remedy this evil, a Church Aid Society was 

 organized in 1859 by the General Consistory 

 of the Lutheran Church, whose operations 

 promise to be of importance to the future of 

 Protestantism in eastern Europe and northern 

 Asia. The central committee of the society, 

 which has its seat in St. Petersburg, is support- 

 ed by twenty district committees, extending 

 through all the parts of the immense empire, 

 and again embracing numerous branch com- 

 mittees. The following facts will convey some 

 idea of the difficult task which the Church Aid 

 Society has undertaken to perform. In the 

 province of Ingria there are 10,803 children of 

 the age to attend a school, but only 1,198 re- 

 ceive instruction in 10 parochial and 6 Sunday 

 schools. The Lutheran parish of Novgorod ex- 

 tends over a territory larger than the aggregate 

 area of Sweden and Norway ; it has 2,083 mem- 

 bers, and only 2 schools. In the governments 

 (provinces) of Vladimir, 1,132 manufactories 

 employ 80,000 workmen, a majority of whom 

 are Lutherans. But it was not until February, 

 1859, that the first Lutheran congregation of 

 the province was organized. The district of 

 the committee of Moscow embraces also West 

 Siberia, which has only two Lutheran parishes, 

 Tobolsk with 329 souls, and Tomsk with 168 

 souls. All East Siberia, a country equal in ex- 

 tent to about five sixths of Europe, has only one 

 Lutheran congregation, at Irkutsk. The number 

 of Lutherans in this parish, as far as they are 

 known, is 1,086, and to see them all the pastor 

 has had to travel during the past four years 

 60,000 versts, one verst being about two thirds 

 of an English mile. 



