The Protestant Evangelical Alliance and its acts.

General review of the foregoing definitions, and acts.—­Present condition of the controversy, and its future prospects.

Predominance of catholicity.  No one who is acquainted with the present tone of thought in Christendom can hide from himself the fact that an intellectual, a religious crisis is impending.

In all directions we see the lowering skies, we hear the mutterings of the coming storm.  In Germany, the national party is arraying itself against the ultramontane; in France, the men of progress are struggling against the unprogressive, and in their contest the political supremacy of that great country is wellnigh neutralized or lost.  In Italy, Rome has passed into the hands of an excommunicated king.  The sovereign pontiff, feigning that he is a prisoner, is fulminating from the Vatican his anathemas, and, in the midst of the most convincing proofs of his manifold errors, asserting his own infallibility.  A Catholic archbishop with truth declares that the whole civil society of Europe seems to be withdrawing itself in its public life from Christianity.  In England and America, religious persons perceive with dismay that the intellectual basis of faith has been undermined by the spirit of the age.  They prepare for the approaching disaster in the best manner they can.

The most serious trial through which society can pass is encountered in the exuviation of its religious restraints.  The history of Greece and the history of Rome exhibit to us in an impressive manner how great are the perils.  But it is not given to religions to endure forever.  They necessarily undergo transformation with the intellectual development of man.  How many countries are there professing the same religion now that they did at the birth of Christ?

It is estimated that the entire population of Europe is about three hundred and one million.  Of these, one hundred and eighty-five million are Roman Catholics, thirty-three million are Greek Catholics.  Of Protestants there are seventy-one million, separated into many sects.  Of Jews, five million; of Mohammedans, seven million.

Of the religious subdivisions of America an accurate numerical statement cannot be given.  The whole of Christian South America is Roman Catholic, the same may be said of Central America and of Mexico, as also of the Spanish and French West India possessions.  In the United States and Canada the Protestant population predominates.  To Australia the same remark applies.  In India the sparse Christian population sinks into insignificance in presence of two hundred million Mohammedans and other Oriental denominations.  The Roman Catholic Church is the most widely diffused and the most powerfully organized of all modern societies.  It is far more a political than a religious combination.  Its principle is that all power is in the clergy, and that for laymen there is only the privilege of