FRANCE'S GREAT NEED by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Aug 30, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 35.

FRANCE'S GREAT NEED.

By G.

IN no country is there a greater need for Protestant missionary work than in France. Of the 38,000,000 inhabitants, less than 1,000,000 are even nominally Protestant. The government is swayed alternately by Catholic and infidel influences. The great revolution of 1798 was a reaction from corrupt church rule in the government, and "the church" was regarded as representing Christianity. Therefore the revolution took the form of infidelity rather than of a much-needed political reform without reference to religion.

Such also has been the tendency in the late controversies between the state and the church. The people, while overwhelmingly Catholic in name and form, are largely infidel in heart and practise. Certain influential persons are calling for the "de-christianization" of the whole country, and the call meets favor in various circles. A press correspondent recently took note of the church attendance in different localities, and found the audiences to be nearly all women. In one village church forty women composed the congregation, the priest and the sexton being the only men present. In such a country, when dissatisfaction with the government arises it is easy to work upon the superstition of the people, and make them believe that more church influence in the councils of state are essential to the popular welfare.

This was what occurred when the infidel reaction had spent its bloody fury, and there came the counter-recoil into church intolerance and extortion. Such is likely to recur as the church powers again arouse the superstitions of the populace against the present movement for a separation of church and state. Rome's growing influence in Germany will greatly accelerate such a condition. France's greatest need, as indeed of all European countries, is the influence of the Gospel. G.