Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

HOMILETIC REVIEW

8915

VOL. XXVIII.

FROM JULY TO DECEMBER.

1894.

EDITORS:

I. K. FUNK, D.D., AND REV. NEWELL WOOLSEY WELLS.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][graphic][merged small]

THE HOMILETIC REVIEW.

VOL. XXVIII. -JULY, 1894.

-No. 1.

REVIEW SECTION.

I. THE PROTESTANT CHURCH OF GERMANY. BY PROFESSOR GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D., COLUMBUS, OHIO.

NUMERICALLY, and still more intellectually, the leadership of the Protestant Church of the world belongs to Germany. Of the nearly 50,000,000 inhabitants of the Fatherland reported by the latest census, fully two-thirds are credited to Protestantism. Deducting from these figures even a fair-sized percentage of merely nominal adherents, there yet remains for the land of Luther a larger contingent of Protestants than even England or the United States can claim. Yet this numerical superiority of Protestant Germany is but a comparatively unimportant ground for assigning to her the precedence in the family of the evangelical Churches of Christendom. Quantity, and number, and bulk are not the measure of influence and power. The leadership of Germany in the Protestant thought and theology of the age is undisputed. While in the sphere of practical Christan activity, such as missionary enterprises, the Anglo-Saxon Churches of England and America are more energetic and willing to labor and sacrifice, and are ordinarily more successful, too, in this sphere than the thoughtful and thinking Germans, it is nevertheless to the latter that the new movements in theological thought-which in these cosmopolitan days, when neither language nor nationality forms a boundary to the spread of new ideas and ideals, have become such powerful factors and forces in modern Church life-must be credited. The influence of German theological thought on that of Protestantism everywhere is simply marvelous, and is growing constantly. The fact that ordinarily several hundred of the brightest of graduates of American colleges and seminaries cross the waters and sit down at the feet of the savants of the famous German universities to learn the secrets of their methods and manners of research, as also the fact that the ups and downs of German theological discussions are eagerly watched by very many in the rank and file of the American ministry, is evidence enough that in

« AnteriorContinuar »