It leaves the
speaker free to assume that in England, whose action in the war we do
not criticise, the nation remains substantially Christian, while in
Germany and Austria the Churches have lost more ground. Indeed, one may
almost confine attention to Germany. Profoundly corrupt as political
life has been in Austria-Hungary for years, there is no little evidence
in the official publications of diplomatic documents that at the last
moment, when the spectre of a general war definitely arose, Austria
hesitated and entered upon a hopeful negotiation with Russia. It was
Germany's criminal ultimatum to Russia which set the avalanche on its
terrible path. Now Germany is notoriously a land of religious criticism
and Rationalism. Church-going in Berlin is far lower even than in
London, where six out of seven millions do not attend places of worship.
It is almost as low as at Paris, where hardly a tenth of the population
attend church on Sundays. In other large towns of Germany the condition
is, as in England, proportionate. Almost in proportion to the size of
the town is the aversion of the people from the Churches.
It is absolutely impossible in the case of Germany to determine, even in
very round numbers, how many have abandoned their allegiance to
Christianity, though, when one remembers the enormous rural population
and the high proportion of believers in the smaller towns, it seems
preposterous to suggest that the country has, even to the extent of one
half, become non-Christian.
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