FORMER INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH 285 



poor and lowly. She consoled the latter with the Fatherhood 

 of Grod, with the example of Jesus, with the hope of immortality. 

 She checked the oppressor by reminding him that there was a 

 Power greater than he, and that one day he would be called to 

 account for his deeds. She restrained the avaricious exploiter 

 by recalling the parable of Dives and Lazarus, by reminding 

 him that the riches of this world are as nothing in the eyes of 

 God. One can easily understand that the believer, in the hour 

 of dire distress, found the great consolation of hope in his faith. 

 But this faith was able to act on the individual conscience 

 because it was more than an individual faith. A belief which is 

 based on individual judgment alone can never prove adequate 

 to the needs of the individual in the hour of distress ; for in that 

 hour, precisely, the individual becomes conscious of his own 

 insufficiency ; in that hour he seeks consolation and encourage- 

 ment outside the limits of his individuality ; consequently, he 

 can find no consolation or encouragement in a belief which, 

 being based on his own individual judgment, does not transcend 

 his individuahty, and is liable to error in the same degree as 

 the individual. A religion which adopts the individual judg- 

 ment as its basis and starting-point cannot conduce to social 

 integration ; as has been seen by the figures showing the respec- 

 tive influence of Catholicism and Protestantism on the suicide- 

 rate of the community.^ 



To-day, however, it is undeniable that the Church has lost 

 much of her influence. And, concurrently with the diminution 



' If it be objected that Germany, which is the land most affected by 

 suicide, is nevertheless a prosperous land, and shows no signs of disintegra- 

 tion, we would reply: (1) Out of the sixty million of inhabitants in the 

 German Empire, twenty million are Catholics, or one-third of the total. It 

 cannot be said that Germany is an exclusively Protestant country. (2) If 

 Germany be, to a great extent, an irrehgious land, in the strict sense of the 

 word, nevertheless a new faith has been substituted for the old faith. On 

 the dry bones of German Protestantism has been built the great edifice of 

 German patriotism. German patriotism, called into being by the disasters 

 of 1806, won Waterloo in 1815, Sadowa in 1866, Sedan in 1870. German 



