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8 THE PRESBYTERIAl
Devotional and Selections
SAVIOUR, COME, AND BRING SALVATION.
Saviour, come, and brine salvatinn
Chase away the lingering night;
Pour thy beams on every nation,
Bless the world with heavenly light.
Let thy glory
Fill the earth from pole to pole,
Till the story
Wakens love in every soul.
Saviour, bring the glad tomorrow;
Brine the fullness nf the Hav
When shall cease the tears of sorrow,
In the mildness of thy sway;
When the nations
Learn the arts of war no more,
And hosannas
Wing in peace from shore to shore.
Break the gloom where souls are dying,
Lost in darkness, sin and strife;
Qnanlr ? ?- ?? * *
?!>??? uc nuiu iu uuuruers signing,
Thou the Way, the Truth, the Life;
Hallelujahs
Wide o'er the earth be sung,
And redemption
Kindle praise on every tongue.
?Christian World.
WHY MEN DON'T GO TO CHURCH?
A symposium in Leslie's Weekly is occupied with
this question, from which wc matp
# .. X I.*1V IWUUVVlllg aclections.
The editor replies as follows: "The only part
of the United States where people go to church as they
used to is the South, where social customs and habits
of thought have undergone least change. What is
back of the small congregations in so many churches?
The bill of particulars would include the distractions
of present-day life. At one time the church service
was the chief intellectual and social feature of the
week; but there is more going on now, both in urban
and rural life. Some lay much blame upon the higher
criticism and its unsettling of men's faith. In the period
of readjustment through which we are passing, many a
pulpit has been slow in finding itsplf anH
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failed to speak with the power of strong convictions;
and many a laymen has seen the old landmark slip
away:, with the new not yet taking its place. A time
of reconstruction is always hard on any institution,
but is inevitable if we are to build on deeper foundations.
Some probably hold the poorer preaching of today
responsible for the empty pews. But it should be remembered
that better preaching is demanded now
iU? r i- tu " ~
iiicx11 lunncriy. i nere is not so great difference as
once there was between the intellectual attainments
of pulpit and pew, and the preacher is no longer the
oracle he once was of the community. There are, too,
a vast number of social and humanitarian agencies
outside the church, and with very many these jnterests
supplant the claim of the church. Even the Sunday
school, called the "right arm" of the church, has'in a
way worked against church attendance. In the minds
of manv narents ^nndav ccti/v>l tolroe
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church for their children. So we do not find the children
in the pews with their parents Sunday morning,
N OF THE SOUTH. December 22, 1909.
as was once the custom. And when the child gets tothe
age when he drops Sunday school, not having previously
gone to church, he has 110 church-going habitThis,
in connection with weak and superficial home
training, is not conducive to church suonort.
"Yet these, after all, are in a way but superficial
excuses. At the root of it all is a declining sense of
God and of personal accountablity to Him. The claim
of God upon every life and the duty to honor him in
the worship of the church must be pressed home upon
men's consciences. The pulpit must cease trying toexcuse
men for failure. Let them face the trying situation
as a business man would do, and let them fearlessly
call upon the people to respond to the claim of
God. But this is a nnestinn tl-mt ?/-?? ?
? ~g ?.1UW van UWl UV ail3WClCU
academically, and we should like to interest the readers
of Leslie's. Read the symposium by the prominent
religious editors in this issue on this subject and then
write the editor today, giving your explanation of the
trouble."
Mr. Charles Gallaudet Trumbull, of the SundaySchool
Times replies:
More Men in the Church Than Ever Before.
"The question, 'Why don't men go to church?' reminds
one of the old question in logic, 'Why did you.
kill your errand mother ?' Yon dirln't nil
W ..... J g.a.tumother,
and men do go to church. Leslie's editors, in
asking for views on this question, note that the census
burea records 43.1 per cent, of the total churchi
membership of nearly 33,000,000 in 1906 as being
males. We don't ordinarily count a sex as left out
if almost half of those present are of that sex. A handful
of fourteen million boys and men would, in other
affairs, seem to be something of a showing.
"Of course not every man goes to church. The
church's work for the world is not yet finished. But
the church is a great deal nearer its goal when the
secular magazines are all asking the false-premise
question, 'Why don't men go to church?' and devoting
pages and pages to pointing out the 'spiritual unrest'
and the 'blasting at the Rock of Ages' and the failure
generally of Christianity and the Church, than when
the world paid no attention to these subjects. A dead'
issue arouses no attention. Corpses are seldom criticised.
But when a man or an institution is one of
the livest things on the horizon, there is never lacking
a widespread effort to point out that one's failure to be
what he (or it) should be.
"As a matter of fart thrrr Viae nrnKoKln
, ?|y* 1IVV VI L?C"
fore been a time in the history of the world when so
many men, both absolutely and relatively to populations,
went to church as today in Christian America.
The really leading business men in any community are
Christian, church-going citizens. A little book was
published not long ago, for example, giving some facts
as to Presbyterianism in Chicaero, and incidentally it
gave a list of Chicago's financial, commercial and professional
leaders, many of jiational reputation, vyho
were active in Christian work. The list represented
only a single denomination in a single city?and that
. ? i: :i-_ ?. - J -- - -i
iuji vji iimai uy iiuicu as a sinning i^nnstian example
in city life. The list could be duplicated many
times ove* in other cities and other denominations.
Yet that one list of church-going captains of industry