Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1899-09-30
CHURCH GOING TODAY.


DIR. P. S. Henson, of the First Baptist
church, Chicago, in a sermon on the
question rs Christianity Losing Its
Grip?" declared that. while the prevail
ence of Sabbath dissertation, empty
churches Sunday nights, the sensation
al methods of ministers in getting peo-
pie into the churches and the disregard
of the word of God as an authoritative
revelation were signs that would lead
one to this belief, there is no cause TO,
discouragemen Instead of shaking
faith in the truth of God. he said. these
things should strength it. He said in
part:
Tremendous issues today confront US.
and momentous questions are being
holly discussed. Questions of munich
pal government. of territorial expan.
sion, of trusts and combines, of indi
vidualism, socialism, and a thousand
more, but not one of them, nor all of
them together, can be compared for !.
moment with the one we are consider
ing.
Christianity has been a mighty factor
in this worlds affairs both as re
straint to destructive passion and az
Inspiration to noblest ambition. What
Christianity is to our modern civiliza
ton. If there was even wen grounded
suspicion that the fires of the sun were
burning low, a shiver of apprehension
would seize the world.
Still graver apprehension ought to be
excited ii it could be demonstrated that
Christianity was really losing its grip.
That there is a growing disregard for
the day of God is only too plainly pal
pable to even the most casual observer
And what we have been wont to cali
our American Sabbath and our glory
seems fast fading into Renaissance.
And the like is true of the house OF
God. Judging from the frantic use OF
sensational methods by distracted
preachers, who are seeking to catch the
public eye and ear, it would seem to be
| increasingly difficult for them to fill
their houses. And as to the Sunday eye-
ming service, more especially, if it ba
not utterly abandoned there rings GU.
| the plaintiff cry of the poor pastor to
the little group of weary listeners:
will we also so away?''
| And as to the word of God itself there
| can be no question that there is an al
tered attitude and widely prevalent
disposition to regard it not so much as
an authoritative revelation from AL
mighty God as a record of the evolution
of the religious thinking of the Semete
| race.
| And along with this has come a
changed conception of the nature of sir
and the need of an atonement, and SC
the very foundations of the Christian
| system seem to be likely to be under
| mined.
| Many causes have contributed to this
condition. The magnificent march OF
physical sciences has had much to dc
with it, The scientific method has to
| do. with phenomena only and naturally
| tends more and more to defy the law
| of nature and outlaw the Deity. Mans
| splendid achievements have tended to
| initiate his pride and predispose him al
mist irresistibly to spurn the hui
initiation of the doctrine of salvation by
the merits of another.
And great theological teachers in the
+, high places to which they have been
exalted by magnificent endowments
| have naturally been infected with this
spirit of the age and have helped the
growing tendency by the railroads.&c.
| trend of their religious teaching. AS a
| consequence of all this the very air is
filed with choke damp in which the fire
of an old fashioned revival would be
speedily extinguished
| And as further consequence we
have not only widely prevalent delu-
sions-dangerous and devilish-and
more numerous than ever before, but q
sweep OF criminality and immortality
almost without parallel. thus giving
us a little premonition of what might
be expected IL the grip OF Christian
faith were to be broken altogether.
But no man need be discouraged
The tides ebb and flow. Such condi.
tions have existed time and again, and
before the end Of I'll things win pre-.