In 1881 the church accommodation in Berlin sufficed for only two per cent of the population, and even that was not at all fully used. This is the social aspect of Protestant Germany; and it effectively confutes the periodic statements as to revivals of orthodoxy in the universities. Such revivals are officially engineered and financially stimulated: the mass of the people of Protestant Germany, at least in the towns, have practically given up the Christian creed, even when they do not renounce their nominal membership in the State Church; and the great Socialistic party, which contains over three millions of adult males, is pronouncedly rationalistic. In Scandinavia the literary influence of such masters of drama and fiction as Ibsen and Björnson creates a freethinking spirit on a very wide scale among the middle classes, though the clergy are still illiberal; and in Holland, where the churches are increasingly latitudinarian, there has been a more competent journalistic propaganda of rationalism than in almost any other country. That the same general movement of things goes on in England may be proved by reference to the almost daily complaints of the clergy. Rationalism and secularism have advanced in all classes during half a century, until their propaganda is accepted as a quite normal activity; such writers as Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and Clifford being read by the more studious of all ranks. In recent years the cheap reprints of the Rationalist Press Association have had millions of readers. Churchgoing constantly declines in the towns; agnosticism becomes more and more common among the educated classes; the average of the workers in the large towns are fixedly alienated from the Church; and the latter-day propaganda of the Salvation Army affects only the less intelligent types even since, after refusing for twenty years to deal with material problems, it has sought to establish itself as a charitable organization for dealing with the "lapsed masses." As regards the general influence of the churches it is observable that whereas fifty years ago there were many clergymen and prelates noted as important writers on non-theological matters, and whereas even a few years ago there were still several bishops distinguished as scholars and historians, there is now none so describable. So, in the department of fine letters, there is scarcely a poet or novelist of high standing who can be called a believing Christian. In the last generation some distinguished men who were openly heterodox, as the late Mr. Matthew Arnold, or very dubiously orthodox, as Mr. Lecky, were wont to profess themselves good members of the Church of England; but the normal tendency of rationalists is now to give the churches up. The leading names in serious and even imaginative literature, with a few exceptions which stand for popularity rather than weight, are those of known unbelievers. In that category stood the late Mr. George Meredith.