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October 20, 1909. THE PRESBYTERI
part of the church. It justifies the church in obtruding
into society, in the effort to reconstruct it, into government
to reorganize and administer it, into trade to
regulate and shape it. It warrants political methods
and political ends. It opens the way to the invoking
of governmental power. It thrusts the kingdom of
God into the kingdoms of men and upon their level,
upon the pretext of uplifting them. It substitutes reform
for religion, reconstruction for regeneration.
The church has a social mission, and a true one.
By the edification of her people through the ordinances
of God's house, by the bringing of them into closer personal
touch with Christ, she makes better men and
women of them, and being better men and women they
become more potential for good in the outward relations
of life. She makes better citizens of them, and
so touches through them, not of herself, the springs of
civic righteousness. She stirs within them new love
for the model of all that is beautiful, and thereby sweetens
the domestic life. But the while she does all this
it is not by herself attempting to reform or to make
civic laws or to enforce them or to ;?t*?rfor.?
family life, but by her faithfully attending to her mission
of exalting Christ and urging men to take him in
his fullness and power.
THE COST OF IT.
"Grapho," of The Advance, who never writes without
spice, tells of a recent encounter on a street-car.
He offered his seat to a lady. She replied, "I am not
tired." "No, but you are a woman," was his courteous
reply. She smiled and remarked, "I am a suffragist!"
whereupon "Grapho" goes to thinking. And he does
it with vigor. His first thought is that such a woman
instinctively recognizes the fact that she has forfeited
the deference to her sex which makes a man stand up
to let her sit down. That is. if she claims pnnalitv at
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the polls she must take a heavier share of the physical
hardships of life. He next meditates upon the question
of the good that is to come of it, and concludes
that the world will not be much bettered by multiplying
the present one vote by two, on each side of political
questions. The best that can come of it would
be only to make a "stand-off." The result likely to
come would be only the doubling of the power of the
evil majority. The women who secure the franchise
are not likely to set up another party or to go against
their husbands to any appreciable extent. The claim
of the women that they would control certain moral
issues, as the temperance problem, is then thought
over, and the thinker concludes that the practical results
and conditions do not warrant any such expectation.
It is in the South that prohibition has most
widely swept over the States, but women do not vote
in me soutn. in Colorado and Wyoming, where they
have the franchise, they have not swept out the saloons.
The chief result of giving woman the ballot would be
the taking from her in public life of all that which
elevates her and sets her apart as the object of deference,
attention, thoughtful regard and care. This
*\?ference and all that it carries with it grows out of
a recognition by man of woman's superiority. Once
made man's equal, she need not expect the undefined,
but none the less real, homage, which is paid her.
*?
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AN OF THE SOUTH. 3
A LESSON FROM SAN FRANCISCO.
Dangers in City-Life.
San Francisco has ever been a peculiar city in this
land. Its early history was that of worldliness. Forty
years ago. men on its streets or in its hotel corridors
were not ashamed openly to avow themselves as atheists.
While one man would say, I am a Methodist, or
a Baptist, another would say with the same tone of
voice. "And I am an yifidel."
One reason of this may be found in the circumstances
of its origin. Massachusetts was founded by men who
were seeking opportunity for the worship of God. So
were the Carolinas. But San Francisco is the child of
a search for gold mines. And it would seem as if the
impulse of its early history is still clinging to it. .
We have just been reading in the "Christian Advocate"
of Nashville a letter from Rev. Dr. C. F. Reid,
concerning the progress of Christianity in that city.
He tells us that in the year 1890 its population was
about two hundred thousand, and the number of
church members was 14,062. In the United States at
large the evangelical church membership is about
twenty per cent of the population. In San Francisco
it was then only about seven per cent.
Since 1890 nineteen years have passed. Dr. Reid tells
that at the present the population of that city is four
hundred thousand, and the number of church members
(as learned from the year books of the different
denominations) is now only 9,747?only between two
1*1 * f ' 1 ? -
aim uirce per cent Ol tne population.
In this there is a tremendous lesson for the Church of
God. If the influences of city life have had such an effect
as this in one city, is there not danger for all our cities?
Can we feel easy about any of our large towns unless
we are putting forth the most vigorous evangelistic
effort.
Dr. Reid, who is a Methodist, says that the decline
is still going on. He says that a few years ago the number
of Methodists in that city was about 3,500, but
that at the present in all their eighteen churches, it is
only 2.200.
One reason for this decline is suggested by Dr. Reid
in the neglect of the churches by the young. On Sunday
"do not go to the churches to look for them, but
rather to the fprrtpc aiul tViP raihiroir ctotinnc nrliorfl
they are flocking by thousands to the parks and pleasure
resorts. Find them in the cheap theatres and wine
rooms. It is probable that not one in fifty of the young
men between the ages of fifteen and thirty ever think
of going to church."
Another reason is in the lack of homes in that city.
He describes it as a city of apartment houses, in which
the children are reared on the streets. And they become
children of the streets.
When the churches lose ground, the devil ^ains.
Dr. Reid ?tates that in San Francisco there are now
i,800 bar rooms. In each of these there are two or
three bar tenders. Count up. More than four thousand
bartenders, and only 9,747 church memb?."S.
If such be the experience of that city, what a warning
have we to put forth our best efforts for our own
hometowns! It must be done quickly.