Page:History of Freedom.djvu/385

 DÖLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAL POWER 341

the lead of Grundtvig. During many years this able man has conducted an incessant resistance against the progress of unbelief and of the German influence, and against the Lutheran 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 I 50,000 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 Schles\vig divine, "is not the oppression \vhich 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. I t is usual for the minister after the sermon to read out a number of trivial local announcements, some- times 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 chiIdren \vould come to church for the servic alone. In no other country in Europe is the strict Lutheran system preached but in Snreden. The doctrine is preserved, but religion is dead, and the Church is as silent and as peaceful as the churchyard. The Church is richly endo\ved; there are great universities, and S\vedes are among the foremost in almost every branch of science, but no Swedish \vriter has ever done anything for religious thought. The example of Denmark and its Rationalist

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