Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/75

 THE GERMAN INNER MISSION 6 1

ministry has gone to the limit of possibilty in the use of police power to exterminate the movement. But at the same time the general and local governments have led the world in their measures to render the life of workers secure and comfortable. Fear of rebellion, anxiety for order, philanthropy and religion have all served as motives for this movement. 1

Ecclesiastical. The population of Germany is nominally two-thirds Protestant and one-third Catholic. The church is supported, in great part, by taxation. In the Protestant church every shade of belief is tolerated, and the official and legal unity covers real divisions and irreconcilable antagonisms. 2 In the practical and social measures of the Inner Mission is found the center of the most genuine and vital accord. Controversies pro- ceed, but theology is becoming more distinctly ethical, less dogmatic and metaphysical.

The activity of the Roman Catholic clergy in the humane movement is a noteworthy fact. In 1846 Father Kolping, who came from the ranks of manual laborers, organized associations of young wage-earners. In 1864 Ketteler published his " Labor Question and the Church," and based his economic reasoning on socialistic theory. The clergy are required to study the social questions, and they have become a power in determining the economic policy of the empire. In the Reichstag their delegates have promoted many labor laws. They are bitterly hostile to the socialists on account of their attitude to religion. The Catholics sustain the institutions of their own Inner Mission.

Dissenters are few in numbers and strength, but they influence the people of the National church. They are often devoted, zealous and have the strong social attachments and clannish feeling of a persecuted people. They also, out of their poverty, support many of the works of Inner Mission, especially the young people's societies and the deaconesses.

The state churches have an apparent advantage of the Ameri-

1 DAWSON, Bismarck and State Socialism J. G. BROOKS, Compulsory Insurance in Germany.

Flifgendt Blalter a. d. Kaulit //,iusf, April i8q6, S. 149.