iy2 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



While it may be disputed whether or not there has been any decline of 

 religion, still there can be no doubt that there has been a decline in a 

 certain kind of religious belief, namely, the kind that regards the more 

 important events of human life as the results of the acts of the Deity 

 and which excuses human beings from responsibility. The old idea of 

 an external power interfering in temporal matters, has been in some 

 degree replaced by a certain aggressive self-reliance among the most 

 advanced peoples of the present time, and trust in Providence is limited 

 to spiritual, rather than material, affairs. The public has begun to feel 

 that the deaths of little children once ascribed to the actions of an inscru- 

 table Providence were in considerable degree due to the improper care 

 that was formerly given these infants. By greater care and nursing we 

 have been able to reduce greatly the deathrate not only of infants but 

 of all other classes of the population. To most persons, this is evidence 

 that not all early deaths were due to acts of Providence. Such being the 

 case, it is inevitable that modern people should place more reliance upon 

 themselves than when they felt that destiny alone controlled their lives. 



In a recent account of the causes of the stationary population 

 in France, 1 the decline of the older form of religious belief is given a 

 prominent place. For many years according to the French statistics 

 the exhortation of the ministers to be fruitful and replenish the earth has 

 fallen upon deaf ears. The birthrate there is just about equal to the 

 deathrate. It is said that the decline is in part due to the weakening of 

 the belief in the biblical injunction in regard to large families. The 

 decline of this obedience makes it all the more easy for the French people 

 to respond to the promptings of that ambition that is necessarily engen- 

 dered by the great increase in the production of the comforts with which 

 modern life is surrounded. Hence, we find there the excessive develop- 

 ment of thrift and the somewhat rigid institution of the dower — things 

 which aim to insure to the population a greater amount of comfort. 



It is well known that in all industrial countries the working-class at 

 the present time does not generally attend religious worship. The work- 

 ingmen are strong of body and exercise vigorously and are consequently 

 persons that would be expected to marry early and have large families. 



1 Guyad, The Nan-Religion oj the Future, p. 323, 1897. 



