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It seems to me clear, then, that if we are to emphasize the transcendent elements in religion; if they represent, as we have been contending, the central elements of the religious experience, its creative factors, then the revival of worship will be a prime step in creating a more truly spiritual society. I am convinced that a homilizing church belongs to a secularizing age.
In January last, Friedrich, intensely meditating this business, had in private a bright-enough idea: That of secularizing those so-called Sovereign Bishoprics, Austrian-Bavarian by locality and nature, Passau, Salzburg, Regensburg, idle opulent territories, with functions absurd not useful; and of therefrom cutting compensation to right and to left. "Secularize, Hah!
The transference of marriage from the Church to the State which, in the lands where it first occurred, we owe to Protestantism and, in the English-speaking lands, especially to Puritanism, while a necessary stage, had the unfortunate result of secularizing the sexual relationships.
The Crusades, the Renaissance, the Revolution, no doubt exercised, in the long run, so potent a secularizing influence, because men's minds had become too largely other-worldly had lost a sufficient interest in this wonderful world; and hence all those new, apparently boundless outlooks and problems were taken up largely as a revolt and escape from what looked like a prison-house religion.
But there are many signs at the present moment of the increasing secularizing of our churches. The individualism of our services, their casual character, their romantic and sentimental music, their minimizing of the offices of prayer and devotion, their increasing turning of the pulpit into a forum for political discussion and a place of common entertainment all indicate it.
Modern history as a whole, in contrast with mediaeval, is marked by several plainly defined characteristics. They are such as appear, however, in a less developed form, in the latter part of the Middle Ages. In the recent centuries, there has been an increased tendency to consolidate smaller states into larger kingdoms. There has been a gradual secularizing of politics.
If a conjunction between Prussia and the Emperor should be formed for the purpose of secularizing and rendering hereditary the Ecclesiastical Electorates and the Bishopric of Münster, for settling two of them on the children of the Emperor, and uniting Cologne and Münster to the dominions of the king of Prussia on the Rhine, or if any other project of mutual aggrandizement should be in prospect, and that, to facilitate such a scheme, the modern French should be permitted and encouraged to shake the internal and external security of these Ecclesiastical Electorates, Great Britain is so situated that she could not with any effect set herself in opposition to such a design.
Fonce's statistics show that twice as many children were born in proportion to population at the beginning of the century, as have been born since 1850. What is the reason? France has taken a very important step in emancipating education from the power of the church completely secularizing education.
While giving themselves cheerfully to the imparting of the education which their pupils are eager to acquire, they put forth resolute steady effort to counteract the secularizing tendency of their studies. The assembled school is opened with prayer, Scripture lessons are given, and, taught as they are by Christians, the pupils are under Christian influence during all their school hours.
Doubtless the natives who had flourished under the nourishing care of the mission in its palmy days, wagged their heads wittingly when the brig Natalia met her fate. Tradition says Napoleon I. made his escape from Elba on that brig. It was by the Natalia that Hijar, Director of Colonization, arrived for the purpose of secularizing the missions; and his scheme was soon accomplished.
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