PROTESTANTS is the generic term for members of the churches which owe their origin directly or indirectly to the Reformation (γ.v.). The name is derived from the Protest of Spires in 1529 (see Luther, vol. xv. p. 80). Certain small communities of Christians older than the Reformation, but agreeing with it in rejecting the authority of Rome, are generally and quite logically grouped as Protestants; and popularly the name is considered to include all Christians who do not belong to the Greek and Roman Catholic communions, though members of the Anglican Church, for example, frequently protest against such a classification as historically false and personally obnoxious. Protestantism has flourished best among the Teutonic peoples of Northern Europe, and has always found it difficult to make its way among the Latin peoples of the South.

The following table shows approximately the number of Protestants in the world :— [table]

This totalof 115,000,000 is for obvious reasons considerably within the truth. Making allowance for increase of population since v°∣ π Jιn∩ nnn ξ, en8 ^ 8 re turns, it will probably be not beyond the mark to state the Protestants of Europe at 81,000,000, of America at o4,000,000, of Asia and Australasia at 3,300,000, and of Africa at 850,000, and the total Γn round numbers at 120,000,000. As regards .∣nope, compare Brachelli, Die Staaten Europa’s, 1884. Juraschek in his edition of Otto Hiibner’s Geograph.-statistische Tabellen, öö4, gives 123,000,000 Protestants, or 8 - 5 per cent, of the total population of the world, which he states at 1,435,000,000.