Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/45

 EVANGELICAL SOCIAL CONGRESS IN GERMANY 31

stratum of the middle class. These are the people who con- stitute the church societies, whose wives join with the Frau Pastor in sewing circles, and who are most closely associated with the parson. And these are just the people who are affected by laws protecting wage-earners : for their business cannot bear more burdens. As in every association and party the attitude toward fundamental questions is decided by the mass of the members and not by individual leaders, so the position taken by the church is determined by that of those who most participate in its life. It must also be remembered that more than half the pastors are over country parishes where few industrials are found, and so they are but slightly affected by the modern labor question. The economic evils with which they are acquainted are chiefly those peculiar to peasants heavy debts, foreign competition, backward methods. Therefore their inter- est is necessarily, and from their standpoint properly, drawn away from the labor question. Many young theologians, who at the university and during their candidacy were zealous advo- cates of Christian Socialism, have naturally become cooler, and finally have gone entirely over to the agrarian high-tariff side, after they have spent a year or so as parsons in an agricultural parish. This does not imply treason to their former convictions ; it is rather the effect of the surroundings which always influence men.

For the Congress this situation made impossible a unified social policy of the entire church. There remained for it only the task of creating a feeling of duty and fraternal sympathy; but from this fact it followed that only pastors who were already inclined to study social problems were interested in the Con- gress. The Congresses have generally aroused intense tempo- rary interest and enthusiasm, as at Frankfort-on-the-Main(i894), Erfurt (1895), Stuttgart (1896), Kiel (1899), Dortmund (1902); but they have left very little permanent result. Small and unin- fluential branches have been established in Wiirttemberg and Holstein. Few of the addresses have had great importance in the literature of the subject. The most significant are :

1891 Professor Herrmann (theologian, follower of Albrecht