Presbyterianism

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland is the most conservative of the great Presbyterian churches in the United Kingdom. Her attitude is one of sturdy adherence to the old paths of evangelical doctrine and Presbyterian polity. She has been a zealous sup porter of Irish national education, which is theoretically "united secular and separate religious instruction." The Church Act of 2869 which disestablished and disendowed the Irish Episcopal Church took away the Presbyterian regium donum. The ministers, with all but absolute unanimity, decided to commute their life interest and form therewith a great fund for the support of the Church. The commutation fund thus formed is a permanent memorial of a generous and disinterested act on the part of her ministry. The interest accruing from it is added to the yearly sustentation contributions, and forms a central fund for ministerial support. Since the state endowment ceased the average income of ministers from their congregations has considerably increased.

Wales.

The Presbyterian Church of Wales, commonly known as the "Calvinistic Methodist," had its origin in the great evan gelical revival of the 18th century. Its polity has been of gradual growth, and still retains some features peculiar to itself. In 1811 its preachers were first presbyterially ordained and authorized to administer the sacraments. In 1823 a Confession of Faith was adopted. In 1864 the two associations or synods of North and South Wales were united in a general assembly. Great attention is given to the education of the ministry, a considerable number of whom, in recent years, have taken arts degrees at Oxford and Cambridge. As far as the difference in language will permit, there is cordial fellowship and co-operation with the Presbyterian Church of England. The appetite of the Welsh people for sermons is enormous, and the preachers are characterized by an excep tionally high order of pulpit power.

Other European

Countries.—In Germany the disestablish ment of the churches, which followed the Revolution, has moved the Reformed section of the Church, the "Ref ormierte Bund," to stress its distinctively Presbyterian principles, and as its mem bership numbers over 600,000 souls, it is destined to exercise a powerful influence in the future reorganisation of the Evangelical churches in that country. The rise of the new state of Czecho slovakia in 1918 led to an extraordinary break-away from the Roman Church; the united Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren now numbers over 250,000 adherents, one of its members being President Masaryk. A similar movement is reported from Ukrainia, further east, where over i,000,000 inhabitants have left the Roman and the Orthodox churches, and are being consolidated in a Presbyterian Church, largely under the mission work of Ukrainians who came back from Canada to carry on the move ment. In Transylvania, on the other hand, the Presbyterians, like the rest of the religious minorities have suffered and are still suffering under oppressive legislation at the hands of the Ru manian Government. The Magyar Reformed Church, with Boo ministers and about 720,000 souls under its charge, has to en counter the Rumanian prejudice against Magyars and the Greek Orthodox dislike of Protestants. The rights guaranteed by the Peace Treaty of 1918 to religious minorities are imperfectly ob served by the Rumanian Govt. and no remonstrances from out side have yet availed to check the persecution of the Church. Hungarian Presbyterians in Transylvania thus suffer heavy dam age by the War-settlement which brought relief and advance to their Bohemian brethren. In Hungary, although the partition of

the country brought about untoward religious results, the Re formed Church is still powerful both in numbers and in prestige, with over I,000 congregations and 1,5oo,000 adherents. The Magyar racial problem emerges again in the position of the Magyar Reformed Church in Czechoslovakia, where about 40,000 members still keep apart from the larger Church of the country, and in the Reformed Church of Yugoslavia, where the members, two-thirds of whom (in all, about 23,000) are Magyars, lie exposed to hardships like those of their brethren in Transylvania. Pos sibly the racial prejudices and religious rivalries which make the situation in Transylvania and Yugoslavia so bitter at present may die down in the course of years ; meantime the redeeming feature is the tenacity with which the oppressed Presbyterians maintain their faith amid a struggle in which, unfortunately, their outside brethren are unable to afford them very much practical sympathy. The four Presbyterian churches in Switzerland have formed a Federation of Evangelical Churches, representing 2,250,000 souls. Switzerland has felt, like most other countries, the call to re-union in organised religion, and the rise of this Federation is a first proof of the Swiss interest in unity. Since 1919 efforts have been made to bring together the Evangelical Church of Neuchatel and the mother church from which it broke away under Godet in 1873, but the local difidculties are still insurmountable. In Bel gium the two small Presbyterian churches, the Union of Reformed Churches and the Missionary Church in Belgium, suffered heavily during the War. Together they now number 5o congregations, with 22,000 members. An even smaller group is the Reformed Helvetic Church in Austria, with its centre at Vienna, which num bers 25,00o souls, out of a total Protestant population of 260,00o. The Waldensian Evangelical Church in Italy numbers only 22,633 members in 112 congregations. but its sturdy spirit is unabated; indeed since the War it has asserted itself more definitely than ever in Italian life, actually holding an Evangelical Congress at Rome itself, in 1920. Its theological college is now transferred from Florence to Rome. The Spanish Evangelical Church has but 1,000 members, a tenth of the total Protestant population in Spain, with 26 ministers and 32 congregations. Still fewer, though for no such reasons as in Italy and Spain and Belgium, are the Presbyterians in Denmark and Sweden, with three congregations between them and barely 400 communicants. The l.istory of these countries seems to have marked the Lutheran form of organisa tion as native to their genius, as is the case with Norway. In Russia the Bolshevik persecution has reduced the Reformed Church from 25 to two congregations, which still survive in Moscow and Odessa. In Poland the Reformed Synod of Warsaw is now reduced to seven congregations, with barely ii,000 people; however, the transfer of Galicia from Austria has added a Re formed Church of three congregations and 7,000 souls. In Lithuania, which was mangled by the Peace settlement, the ancient Reformed Church numbers only nine congregations, with 17,527 members, but the land is politically free, and, though it is still predominantly Roman Catholic, the first national Cabinet was half Protestant in its membership.