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and in Berlin, attended any church: while Protestant Glasgow (with 760,000 inhabitants in 1904) has, according to its clergy, only 16 per cent. of church-goers, Things have not changed in favour of the faith since Manning’s time; and all the Churches now complain, not only of non-attendance, but of a dearth of suitable candidates for ordination, Truly, as the good Archbishop of York told his clergy in 1882: “Our Christian Church is now fighting for its very existence.” A report on the social condition of certain parts of Aberdeenshire was laid before the General A embly of the Church of Scotland in 1893. It thence appears that, in this district, a very small percentage of the people are members of any Church: most of them are unbaptised, baptism being treated as an old wife's fable; while “immorality is the bane of the district.”. There had been no improvement in the last thirty years, we are told, the causes operating being unchanged. In the Chris- _ tian Monthly (January 1881) Bishop Fraser of Manchester spoke to the _ same effect. “One of his parishes, with a population of 10,000, had only accommodation for 1700, and a church attendance of 100.” [But in Manchester most of the manufacturing cla are’ Non-conformists.— Ep.] It is much the same in America, “In spite of us” (says the Rev. H. R. Davis, Thoughts for the Times, p. 350), “the majestic wave of progre moves on, submerging the worn out beliefs and crumbling superstitions of the past. We deem them wild and lying _ spirits; they care not; they pa us by, and sometimes are full of holy scorn, They speak to their own, and their own receive them; and we may go hence, and mutter threats, and tremble in the darkne and spiritual gloom of our empty churches; but outside our churches the bright light is shining, and the ble ed winds of heaven are full of songs from the open gates of Paradise, and men hear them and rejoice. How many are there—religious people—who never go to church; who despise Christianity... and yet are living high Christian lives? Thus we begin to see that although man has tried to imprison this glorious and free spirit in his Creeds and Articles, yet he has failed. There is a Christian spirit—be it said to our shame—working outside the Christian Church... leaving us alone in our orthodox sepulchres, ‘with the bones and ashes of bigotry and formalism.” The progre of Christian mi ionary enterprise shows us clearly that only among savages is any succe at all attained. In Moslem countries it is death for an Islami to change his creed. In China and India Christianity has never taken real root. The Portuguese, as a Roman Catholic nation, began to proselytise nearly 400 years ago; and Protestants under a Protestant Government have striven an India for nearly 150 years. In 1542 Xavier arrived, and by Lye 1550 he claimed 20,000 converts in Ceylon and Southern India, though there were ‘‘frequent apostacies” after he left for China, where he died in 1552. The Dutch, seizing Portuguese po e ions (1602-1620 a.c.), suppre ed Romanism, and promoted Protestantism. The rate of increase of converts is now calculated to be about 10 per cent. per annum; but India is doubling its population in about 40 years, and according to the census of 1901 this population includes 70 per cent. Hindus, 21 per cent. Moslems, 3 per cent, Buddhists; — and, out of the remaining 6 per cent., only 1 per cent Christians. The total was 287,341,941 persons; and, under the most favourable _ circumstances, it would appear that it would take about a thousand years to convert this population. The statistics however show that conversions to Brahmanism and to Islim are increasing in a far larger ratio than conversions to Christianity. The British Government in India officially recognised mis- _ sionaries in 1813, and by 1830 there were nine societies at work. The nominal Protestants numbered (according to Dr Venn) 81,000 — in 1815, and in 1890 (according to Dr Mullins) had risen to © 648,843 (Scotsman, Nov. 1892). 487