St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-06-07
CHURCH ATTENDANCE.

O11 4eSa IN f1NSkJ.
The GLOBE publishes in another col
umn this morning an interesting series
of interviews with prominent clergy
men here and elsewhere on the subject
OF church attendance. These gentlemen
undertake to answer the question why
people do not go to church as gener
ally as they used to, and to suggest
some ways in which larger congre-
cations can be secured. 1t is impor-
tant to notice that neither the Jewish
rabbi, who favors the public with
his opinion on this question, nor
Father Hebron, Of the Roman
Catholic cathedral, admits that there
has been any decline of inter-
est in church services So far as
their faiths are concerned, while the
representatives of the other denomina-
lions seem to agree that such has been
the case with them, but give explana-
tons and propose remedies as numer-
Gus as is their own number.
Church services are of two sorts. In
the one the element of worship pre-
dominates and in the other the intellec-
tual element. There are some sects
where the service is practically indie
pendent of the character and ability of
the officiating clergyman, and some III
which it depends OH him wholly. As
the world grows in general intelligence
the attendance on services of this
second sort will grow smaller unless
men of commanding parts occu-
pies the pulpit. Preachers of very
small caliber will be listened to
with interest by people who
do not know anything themselves; but
in this age, when mems critical capac-
tiles are acute, it takes BEECHER, or
TALMAGE, or JOHN HALL, or RICH
ARD STORRS to attract a large number
of hearers. If there has been any loss
of interest in such directions it can be
attributed, partly at least. to the fact
that the best young men of the country
have not gone into the ministry during
the past twenty-five years, and that the
pastors of many churches whose relig-
ions exercises are cold and uninterest-
ing, unless warmed by vigorous person
ality, are men who would not command
a following in any other walk of life.
But this is only partial explanation.
The other explanation suggests at the
same time how futile will be efforts to
stem popular Indifference in such mat
tiers, if any such Indifference exists.
Church attendance is, at the best, but a
form of manifesting an internal feeling.
Men believe in the essential truths of
religion, and at one stage of the worlds
history they showed this by participant
ing in church worship. But the old
order changes, and at another time they
show it in another way. In an earlier
age bards and MINISTRIES moved men to
action, ana again orators were the
authors and the guides of popular
uprisings. There have been times
when the highest feelings of the most
enlightened communities were reused
by the stilted words of actors, and when
the theater was a religious spectacle.
Less than twenty-five years ago the
novel was the predominant intellectual
agent in the English speaking world,
ana men who never read a newspaper
had their entire views of life shaped by
the career of Pendennis, and tuned
their hearts to the profoundest emotions
over the story of Little Nell. To-day
bardS, minstrelS, orators, players and
writer's of books have yielded the scep-
ter to the newspapers, which, for good
or ILL., are the great public teachers and
guides of the hour.
1t does not prove that men have no
iDtellects or emotions because the ave-
nues through which they are cultivated,
or in which they are expressed, are
thus sometimes of one sort and again
of another. So. in the like manner, the
cause of Christ is just as dear and real
to men to-day as it was in an age when
church attendance may have been
greater. Many man who never con-
sclously bows the knee to the Master
is His disciple because he does good
deeds or speaks kind words to the
needy. The followers of the SUBJ
lime Mystic of the Gallilean hills
grow in numbers day by day because
the world grows better day by day.
Church attendance may or may not
have declined i'll popularity, but if it
has it no more means that the faith has
lost its hold on the masses than if one
should say that love was dead because
men no longer serenaded their mis-
tresses, or that there were no brave
knights in the world because swords
and duels have gone out of fashion.