"The church, like all social institutions, is subject to constant change, and will eventually disappear."
Quotations like the preceding could be multiplied indefinitely, as could also acts consistent with these anti-religious views. The first Minister of Cults (Kultusminister) appointed by the revolutionary government in Prussia was Adolf Hoffmann, a professed atheist, although this ministry has charge of the affairs of the church.
The Socialist literature and press in all countries abound in anti-religious utterances. To quote one is to give a sample of all. The Social-Demokraten of Stockholm, official organ of the Swedish Socialists and reckoned among the sanest, ablest and most conservative of all Social-Democratic press organs, forgets, too, that religion is a private matter. It reports a sermon by Archbishop Söderblom, wherein the speaker declared that the church must have enough expansive force to conquer the masses who are now coming to power in various lands, and adds this characteristic comment:
"The Archbishop is a brave man who is not afraid to install a motor in the venerable but antiquated skiff from the Lake of Genesareth. If only the boat will hold him up!"
This attitude of Socialism is comprehensible and logical, for no student of world history can deny that an established church has been in all ages and still is one of the strongest bulwarks of an autocratic state. From the very dawn of organized government, centuries before the Christian era, the priesthood, where it did not actually govern, has powerfully upheld the arm of civil authority and property rights. Even in democratic England it teaches the child to "be content in the station whereto it has pleased God to call me," and is thus a factor in upholding the class distinctions against which Socialism's whole campaign is directed. In opposing the church as an institution Social-Democracy is thus merely true to its cardinal tenets. If the power of the church be destroyed or materially weakened, a serious blow is dealt to the government which that church supported. People who, at the command of the church, have been unquestioningly rendering unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, begin to ask themselves: "But what things are Cæsar's?" And when the people begin seriously to consider this question, autocracy is doomed.
The effect of the Socialist campaign against the church began to make itself felt a decade or more before the war began. Withdrawals from the church became so frequent that the government was seriously concerned. The number of those who termed themselves Dissident (dissenter) or religionslos (without any religion) increased rapidly. Clergymen preached the doctrines of Christ to empty benches; religionslose Genossen preached the doctrines of class warfare and disloyalty to state to Socialist audiences that filled their meeting-places.
Thus the cancer ate its way into the vitals of the Empire.