Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1900-08-04
HINDRANcES.
Some of abe Reasons People DO Not
Go to Church, Especially In
Larger Cities.

A minister who labors in a district
of the better class of tenements occu-
pied by the middle class spoke of
the difficulty of building up cengrega-
ton. A large proportion of the fam
lilies were formerly church members,
and may nominally still be so, but they
have fallen away from church inter
ests, and are with difficulty, if at all,
recovered. II ne could have what was
formerly his own, he would have a
large congregation. The class referred
TO nearly all come from Christian or
church-affiliated families. The better
and more intelligent young people,
trained under church influences, are
the ones who rise to the best middle
positions-earn good salaries and live
comfortably, as the people in that dis
trict all do-and this accounts for the
churchly origin of the great majority
of them. The minister accounted for
their lack of interest in the churches in
various ways. One was their habit OF
fitting ut the beginning of the rent
year. IL a family can find as good a
tenement as. they occupy for the same
rental, freshly put in good order and
clean, they prefer to move rather than
to stay during the process OF house
cleaning and redtting. Having no par
ticular anchorage, they are easily in
duced 10 change location. Local at
tachments do not torm in n rented
house. When church relations are
broken loose two or three times they
become too feeble to hold. There are
no social ties to hold them to the
church. A solid church can only be
built among established homes. He
thought this largely accounted for alb
senteeism. Asked If he did not ching
that other more general influences have
large effect, his experience led his mind
ito trace the power Of other influences
back to those he had described. The
salaried man, not strongly drawn to
the church, claims one day Of outing
and breathing, so he goes and takes his
family TO the parks or to the country:
or to dine with old friends, makes a
social or an outdoor day of it-and 1t
is not easy to break in upon this habit
when once formed. Asked how he
tried 10 counteract these influences, he
said his methods were largely social
attempts to renew the old attachments
and TO form new ones by pastoral ac-
quaintanee and service; and by thor
ongh preparation for his pulpit and
midweek meetings.
These are local conditions. They are
not sufficient to explain the expiration
and dissolution of such a church as
our old Chicago Fifth, and the halt of
the denominations generally. Is there
an enlightenment or partial paralysis
OF the religious instinct? This is hard.
~ supposable. 1t is more probable
shacit is seeking new forms of graft
tication-that it is finding expression
more consonant with itself than that
which the churches afford. that it is
setting up new gods and new ideals to
worship-each after his kind, like the
old Semites. each family of which had
its own teraphim; the great god
among all of which is Mammon. If so,
he will be found 10 be q bad god, whose
affairs smoke with human sacrifices.
Let those who love God thank Him
most that He condescends TO dwell with
them.-Chicago Interior.