The record-union., 1899-09-17

holiday. Without question, a census
of schools would show not few which
have learned how to make the obser-
vance of the day contribute to their
permanent increase. But the signifi-
canoe Of Rallying Day extends beyond
the Sunday school. 1t points to the
necessity and it argues the possibility
of adopting all our religious methods to
the actual condition of the present
time. Business and professional men
tell us that they would very shortly
be bankrupt if they endeavored to
conduct affairs according to the meth
DDS of their fathers. 1t is because
they have learned tG adapt their meth
DDS to the changed conditions of the
time that they are able to win success,
But the churches are Tor the most
part clinging jealously to the methods
which were proved good a generation
or a century ago, and have hardly
dared, even if they have desired, to
ask if there may not be other methods
better adapted to the present need"
"Much is being written and said,''
says the New York Independent" ''to
show that Christianity has been recent
ly losing ground and giving place to
one or another form of materialistic in
fidelity. Mere statements are not hard
to make, and they may be offered in
all sincerity when there is really moth
ing to support them. We have noS
been able to see just how the op-
ponents of Christianity find statistics
xxr1ai 10 h11il Of n
decadence of faith. One distinguished
writer has asserted that strong indi-
cation of our falling away from q
Christian standard of action is our in
Diligence to the needs and feelings of
our interiors and our disregard for the
rights of the weak. But do indiffer-
ence and disregard of this sort really
exist now to anything like the extent
observable in earlier periods of Chris
tian history?"
"a study of the growth of religious
life in our colleges and universities,
shows that it has been steadily in ad-
vance of the growth of religion among
the people as a whole" says the New
York "Churchman" P E.). ''This is
natural for all who believe that our re-
ligion is true ought surely to expect
that it would commend itself most to
those who know most about it. When
infidelity swept over England and
America in the last century, it showed
its baneful results most conspicuously
in the higher institutions of learning.
The college man turned from the relig
ion of the last century more than did
the people, because the religion of that
day had not kept pace with the ad-
vancement of knowledge. A hundred
years ago there were, according to Mr..
Gulicks Growth of the Kingdom of
God,' only three professed Christians in
Yale College. In Princeton, as late as
1913, there was only one. These are
startling facts, but not more remarka
BILE than what Bishop Polk tells of the
spiritual condition of West Point as
late as 1925, when, out of 800 students
and Professors in attendance, there
were none who openely confessed Christ.
the last fifty. years has indeed witness
ed a wonderful awakening of spiritual
life. Now in the country at large, one
young man in twenty is a church men,
Der, and in the universities more than
half are such. So strong is the rising
tendency that the last class to enter
Yale showed an average of 10 per cent,
while a recent graduating class of 200
had 164 professed Christians
.