Woodruff County news., 1901-09-19
HE ENTERS A DENIAL.
Sermon Regarding the Diminishing
 of Sunday Audiences.
pr. Ta1mage Presents Some Hard Facts Showing That Church Att tendance in America Is Not
 in Decadence.

Most encouraging to all Chris tian workers is this discourse of Dr. Tal- mage while denying the accuracy of statistics which represent Sunday au- diences as diminishing. Text, He brews 1o:25, Not forsaking the as sembling of ourselves together"
 Startling statements have been made in many of the pulpits and in some of the religious newspapers. It is heard over and over again that church att tendance in America is in decadence. l deny the statements by presenting some hard facts. No one will dispute the fact that there are more churches in America than ever before, one de- nomination averaging two new churches every day of the year. The law of demand and supply is as inex- orable in the kingdom of God as 1t IS in the world. More churches supplied argues more church privileges demand ed. More banks, more bankers; more factories, more manufacturers; more ships, more importers; more churches, more attendants.
 In all our cities within a few years churches have been built large enough to swallow up two or three of the old time churches. I cannot understand with what kind of arithmetic and slate pencil a man calculates when he comes to the conclusion that church attend ance in America is in decadence. Take the aggregate of the number of people who enter the house of God now and compare it with the aggregate of the people who entered the house of God 25 years ago, and the present attend ance is four to one. The facts are most eXhilarating instead of being de- pressing. That man who presents the opposite statistics must have been most unfortunate in his church ac- quaintance.
 You are not to argue adversely be- cause here and there church is de pleted. Churches have their day. Sometimes merchandise will entirely occupy a neighborhood and crowd out the churches and families ordinarily attendant upon them. Sometimes a church perishes through internecine strife. But there are no facts to over throw the statement that 1 have made in regard to the increasing attendance upon the house of God. Now, I am ready to admit, as every intelligent man will admit, that there are churches which have been depleted, and it is high time that sermon be preached for the benefit of young men who are just entering the Gospel min istry and for the warning of prosper ous churches as to what are the causes of decline in any case. If merchandise crowd out a church, that cannot be helped, but under all other circum- stances decadence in church attend ance is the fault either of the church or of the pastor.
 Churches are often cleared of their audiences by the attempt to transplant the modes of the past into the pres ent. The modes and methods of 50 years ago.are no more appropriate for to-day than the modes and methods of to-day will be appropriate for 50 years hence. Dr. Kirk, Dr. McElroy, Dr. Ma son, Dr. De Witt, Dr. Vermilyea and hundreds of other men just as good as they were never lacked audiences, because they were abreast of the time in which they lived People will not be interested in what we say unless we understand the spirit of the day in which we live. All the woe-be gonish statistics are given by those who are trying in our time to work with the worn-out machinery of the past times. Such men might just as well throw the furnaces out of our church basements and substitute the foot stoves which our grandmothers used to carry with them to meeting, and throw out our organs and our comets and take the oldEfashioned tuning fork, striking it on the knee and then lifting it to the ear to catch the pitch of the hymn, and might as we'll throw out our mod ern platforms and modern pulpits and substitute the wineglass pulpit up which the minister used to climb to the dizzy height of Mont Blanc solitariness and then go in out of sight and shut the door after him. When you can get the great masses of the people to take passage from Albany to Buffalo in stage coach or canal boat in prefer ence to the lightning express train. which does it in four hours, then you can get the great masses of the peo- pie to go to a church half century be- hind the time.
 The trouble begins away back in the theological seminaries. It is shame that larger provision is not made for ministers of religion, for the sick and the aged and the infirm who have worn themselves out in the service of God. We have naval asylums and soldiers asylums for men who fought on land and sea for our country when these men have become aged or crippled, and it is a shame that larrer nrnuis;o., ;s