EARTH. 



251 



adult membership, of number of churches and 

 ministers, and other facts, from which infer- 

 ences as to the total population which more or 

 less is influenced and controlled by the doctrin- 

 al tenets of a particular religious denomination, 

 may be made. It is interesting to observe, in 

 the religious statistics of those states which 

 include the religious profession of the inhabi- 

 tants in the official census, the small number 

 of persons who avow themselves as atheists. 

 In Prussia, which by friends as well as by foes 

 is sometimes looked upon as the El Dorado of 

 atheists and opponents to the belief in a person- 

 al God, avowed atheists can only be looked for 

 in the columns of "persons of unknown reli- 

 gions," who number 4,495, and free religions, 

 of whom there were 2,531. Thus no more 

 than about 7,000 in a total population of 

 24,600,000 made a statement that might cause 

 them to be looked upon as atheists. In France, 

 81,951 persons were returned as " without reli- 

 gion" or "religions unknown," in a total pop- 

 ulation of 36,000,000. In the Dominion of 

 Canada, according to the official census of 1871, 

 of a total population of 3,486,000, only 20 per- 

 sons claimed to be atheists, 409 deists, and 

 5,144 to have no religion. Facts like these in- 

 dicate that, however large the number of per- 

 sons in Christian countries may be, who are 

 indifferent in religious matters, or have dis- 

 carded a belief in a personal God and in Chris- 

 tianity, the population continues to be almost a 

 unit in its outward connection with Christian- 

 ity. This includes the Christian character, 

 more or less explicit, of laws, of customs, of 

 literature, and of education. The countries 

 of Europe, America, and Australia, may there- 

 fore be looked upon as representatives of the 

 Christian religion and of Christian civilization 

 to as high a degree as at any former period 

 of their history. 



According to the latest information accessi- 

 ble, we estimate the Christian population of 

 America at about 80,000,000 ; of Europe, at 

 289,000,000; of Australia and Polynesia, at 

 3,000,000 ; of Asia, at 16,000,000 ; of Africa, at 

 6,000,000; of the entire globe, at 393,000,000. 



Christianity is commonly divided into three 

 large groups, viz., 1. The Roman Catholic 

 Church; 2. The Eastern Churches; 3. The 

 Protestant Churches : the latter embracing all 

 Christian sects not belonging to the first two 

 groups. According to the latest calculations, 

 the population connected with each of the 

 three groups is about as follows : 



It will be seen, from the above table, that 

 the Roman Catholic Church embraces a con- 



siderable majority of the total population of 

 America, and nearly one-half in Europe. It 

 exceeds the Protestant population in Asia, but 

 is exceeded by it in Africa and Australia. 



The remarks just made apply with still 

 greater force to Mohammedan, Buddhist, and 

 other countries, where the number of inde- 

 pendent thinkers and skeptics is less and the 

 influence of the state religion upon national 

 life greater than in Christian countries. By 

 far the most prominent among the creeds of 

 the world are Christianity, Buddhism, Brah- 

 manism, Mohammedanism, the religion or ethi- 

 cal system of Confucius, the Shinto religion, 

 and Judaism. 



1. Christianity. Three of the five large 

 divisions of the globe may be set down as al- 

 most wholly Christian. Every country of 

 America, without exception, every country of 

 Europe, except Turkey, the Australian conti- 

 nent, with many of the Polynesian islands, 

 profess Christianity as the national religion, 

 and even in Turkey the Christians constitute 

 the large majority of the population in the 

 European dominions, and the entire expulsion 

 of the only non-Christian government of Eu- 

 rope appears to be near at hand. In Asia, 

 more than one-half the entire area (9,379,000 

 square miles) is under the rule of Christian 

 governments, chiefly Russia and Great Britain, 

 and the extent of this territory is increasing 

 every year. In Africa, the possessions of the 

 Christian powers are likewise steadily increas- 

 ing. In addition to Abyssinia, which has been 

 nominally a Christian country for fifteen hun- 

 dred years, Liberia, the Transvaal Republic, 

 the Orange Free State, and Madagascar, are 

 independent African states with Christian gov- 

 ernments. In all the countries of America, 

 Europe, and Australia, in the dependencies of 

 the European powers in Asia and Africa, the 

 Christian population is either officially enu- 

 merated in the census, or can be estimated 

 with a high degree of accuracy ; and if it is 

 only kept in mind that statistics of Christian- 

 ity, or any other creed, can only mean the pop- 

 ulation nominally connected with, and actually 

 influenced and controlled by, its doctrines, the 

 estimates of the present number of Christians 

 may be accepted as being a comparatively near 

 approach to the real facts ; nearer, at all events, 

 than any former estimate of Christianity, or 

 any present estimate of the other large creeds. 



2. Buddhism. This form of religion is com- 

 monly represented as having a larger number 

 of adherents than any other form of religion, 

 and some estimate the population connected 

 with it as high as 500,000,000. Other esti- 

 mates are, however, much lower, some being 

 as low as 300,000,000. The impossibility of 

 making accurate estimates arises from the fact 

 that Buddhism in China has so much conformed 

 itself to the old Chinese religion, and in Japan 

 to the national religion of Shintoism, that the 

 marks of difference have become almost imper- 

 ceptible. The present sovereign of Japan is 



