n system, the royal supremacy, and the
parochial constitution. Not unlike the Tractarians, he desires the
liberty of establishing a system which shall exclude Lutheranism,
Rationalism, and Erastianism; and he has united in his school nearly all
who profess positive Christianity in Denmark. In Copenhagen, out of
150,000 inhabitants, only 6000 go regularly to church. In Altona, there
is but one church for 45,000 people. In Schleswig the churches are few
and empty. "The great evil," says a Schleswig divine, "is not the
oppression which falls on the German tongue, but the irreligion and
consequent demoralisation which Denmark has imported into Schleswig. A
moral and religious tone is the exception, not the rule, among the
Danish clergy."

The theological literature of Sweden consists almost entirely of
translations from the German. The clergy, by renouncing study, have
escaped Rationalism, and remain faithful to the Lutheran system. The
king is supreme in spirituals, and the Diet discusses and determines
religious questions. The clergy, as one of the estates, has great
political influence, but no ecclesiastical independence. No other
Protestant clergy possesses equal privileges or less freedom. It is
usual for the minister after the sermon to read out a number of trivial
local announcements, sometimes half an hour long; and in a late Assembly
the majority of the bishops pronounced in favour of retaining this
custom, as none but old women and children would come to church for the
service alone.

In no other country in Europe is the strict Lutheran system preached but
in Sweden. The doctrine is preserved, but religion is dead, and the
Church is as silent and as peaceful as the churchyard. The Church is
richly endowed; there are great universities, and Swedes are among the
foremost in almost every branch of science, but no Swedish writer has
ever done anything for religious thought. The example of Denmark and its
Rationalist clergy brought home to them the consequences of theological
study. In one place the old system has been preserved, like a frail and
delicate curiosity, by excluding the air of scientific inquiry, whilst
in the other Lutheranism is decomposing under its influence. In Norway,
where the clergy have no political representation, religious liberty was
established in 1844.

Throughout the north of Europe the helpless decline of Protestantism is
betrayed by the numerical disproportion of preachers to the people