PROTESTANTISM IN AUSTRIA.
WHAT is known as the “Los von Rome” agitation in Austria, of which we have made previous notice, says the Christian Work, continues to elicit bitter discussion. According to the official organ of Protestantism in Austria, the Evangel Kirchenzeitung, the movement, especially in the provinces in which Germans predominate, has shown a steady progress in recent months, and starting originally as a political movement, has become a purely religious and ecclesiastical agitation. The ten thousand converts called for by Representative Schoenerer have long since been secured, it is said, and the number is now nearly twenty thousand, of whom nearly three-fourths have connected themselves with the Protestant churches, and one-fourth with the Old Catholic, only a handful refusing to affiliate with either communion. Within the last two years forty new preaching places have been established, twenty-one Protestant churches have been dedicated in Roman Catholic districts, eighteen such churches are now in process of being erected, and twenty-nine others are in contemplation. Forty-three new pastorates have been established. This does not suit the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, who have recently inaugurated a counter-agitation, in which they are energetically aided by the government. But the work goes on, and gives no evidence of decline.