"And how about the educated classes? It has long since been the boast
and hobby of advanced theology that it, and it alone, will satisfy
the religious longings of the educated man who has broken with the
traditional dogma and doctrines of orthodox Christianity. But what
are the actual facts in the case? It is a fact that there are a
considerable number among the educated who thankfully confess that
they can accept Christianity only in the form in which it is taught
by the advanced theologian. But how exceedingly small this number is!
A periodical like the _Christliche Welt_, the only paper of its kind,
has not been able to secure more than five thousand subscribers,
although its contributors are the most brilliant in the land of
scholars and thinkers; while periodicals that are exponents of the
older views are read by tens and even hundreds of thousands. There
are whole classes of society among the educated who are antagonistic
to liberal tendencies in religion. Among these are the officers in
the army and the navy, practitioners of the technical arts and of
engineering, and almost to a man the whole world of business. It is
foolish to close our eyes to these facts."

What is the matter? asks this writer. What is the weakness of liberal
and advanced theological thought? These are some of the answers:

"One trouble is that modern theology has entirely grown out of
criticism. Its weakness is intellectualism; it is a negative
movement. We can understand the cry of the orthodox, that advanced
theology is eliminating one thing after the other from our religious
thought, and then asks, What is left? True, we answer, God is left.
But is it not the case that the modern God-Father faith is generally
a very weak and attenuated faith in a Providence, and nothing more?