# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1859_S352
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

352 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

-menians wanted to resort to force in order to oppose the spread of the Gospel among them, he addressed the following speech to them before all the people: "I belong neither to the Greek, nor to the Armenian, nor to the Protestant clergy; I am therefore unable to pass judgment on the respective merits of the writings of these three sects, and it would likewise be impossible for me to give an opinion on the question of whether two or four candles must be lit in the churches: but this I do know, that throughout the whole empire freedom of conscience and freedom of worship now prevail for everyone. The various sects may therefore freely discuss their religious opinions and publicly confess their faith. Moreover, every Muhammadan is free to become a Christian, if it pleases him." At these words all the court officials surrounding the Pasha made a sign of approval, and the Pasha continued: "In Stambul several Turks have become Protestants without any hindrance whatsoever; the Sultan has proclaimed religious freedom for everyone, and if tomorrow my own son were to declare to me that he had become a Protestant, I could neither say anything to him nor do anything to him."

The N. Preuß. Zeitung is written to from Vienna: "In the commission which is now deliberating on the confessional question, there is, by all accounts, a strong party present which declares that there can be no talk of such an equality of rights, but that Austria must maintain the standing of a strictly Catholic state; at most, an equality of rights could partly take hold. It seems that, with regard to the confessional question too, one prefers to proceed provincially, that is, with regard to the diversity of the crown-lands. Connected with this is presumably the report, from a paper here, that children of Austrian Protestants who wish to enter military state institutions must produce a written undertaking from their parents or legal guardians, in which these declare their consent that the children go over to Catholicism."

The Zeitung für Norddeutschland is written to from Vienna: "A Hungarian newspaper carried an appeal for contributions toward the rebuilding of a burned-down Protestant church. Publication of this appeal was forbidden to it, and it was told at the same time: the Protestants might collect among themselves as much as they liked, but a public appeal for contributions for a Protestant church could not be tolerated in Catholic Austria."

The Decline of the Unitarians in England. Writing in January of this year, their periodical, the Inquirer, has the following to say:

"Year by year our congregations grow weaker, not only in numbers, but still more in public influence and in importance. It is not long since the treasurer of one of our institutions assured us that our community was gradually heading toward a complete transformation, that he must now already raise contributions from the lower ranks of the great middle class. Individual congregations furnish proof of this. We find the same result in Wakefield, Exeter, and Norwich, and so it is everywhere. Liverpool has doubled and trebled its population, and the three Unitarian congregations that existed there at the beginning of this century remain unchanged, as they were, in numbers and influence. What strikes us first in this distressing observation is that Unitarianism remains invariably confined to our oldest families, who are bound to us by ancestral ties too close for them to have been snatched away from us. On the other hand, however, many respected names no longer belong to us. It would be as needless as it would be hurtful to name them. A second fact is this: among the great number of those who fall away, it is always first the female part of the families who leaves us. We did not make this discovery only recently. We have long known of it, and it has been put down partly to social intercourse, partly to weaker understanding. But that is entirely wrong. A closer investigation will show that those who have left have gained rather than lost in spiritual life, and that quite different motives underlie their leaving. We have set 'free inquiry' (the freedom of doctrine) at the head of theological investigation and made it the foundation of worship. We have paid less regard to the holiness and the work of Christ, but have rather dealt it a blow through ill-considered controversies and through doubts, by which we have made the foundation totter. We have had no zeal, nor have we awakened any. We have given a stone for the bread of life, and poured bitter water into the cup of grace. That is the cause of the falling-away. We reap what we have sown. But something must happen, or else, by the end of this century, not a single soul will be left of all the old Unitarian families of England."