Invoking Martin Luther's "Here I stand" may have been his own idea but dwindled without "I can do no other," which in the circumstances might have brought disbelieving giggles.
One church in particular, Macrory Memorial, has lain derelict for nearly 40 years on the New Lodge/Tiger's Bay interface of north Belfast since subscribers to the church's weekly offerings dwindled to zero in 1973.
While more than 100,000 people turned out for rallies at the protests' peak this autumn, the numbers of demonstrators have sharply dwindled and public support for the movement has waned.
Since then the numbers of demonstrators picketing the clinic has dwindled.
These weren't emotions I would have predicted, given who he was, and the impact he had had on my life, but, this was late in the 1970s, and by then his audience had dwindled and his charisma had begun to fade.
When Margaret Thatcher won her first mandate to "deal with the unions" in 1979, 29.5m working days were lost to strikes, a figure that dwindled to 235,000 in 1997 when Tony Blair moved into No 10.
Germany's anti-Islam Pegida movement took nearly 10% of the vote in mayoral elections in its eastern stronghold of Dresden on Sunday, a better-than-expected result for a group whose weekly demonstrations have steadily dwindled.
Its parliamentary strength may have dwindled to a level between its showing in the 1992 election (20 seats) and 1997 (46).
Their numbers and range dwindled so much last century due to human development that there are fears they could be the first ape species to go extinct because of people.
As the days passed, the number of tourists dwindled.
If Vladimir Putin was to decide his propaganda value has dwindled, he might even find himself in a few years traded for a prominent Russian held in the US.
