The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-11-17
And the Churches support 1t by Read
lily and Earnestly Adapting Them
selves to Its Demands.
OF CITIZEN SUNDAY
A DAY ON WHICH THE NEEDS OF
THE MASSES RECEIVE ATTENTION.
Earnest Efforts Looking to Bettering
Plainly Told from the PuIpits.

Correspondence OF the Indianapolis Journal.
LONDON, Nov. GA Sunday of extraor-
binary interest has just passed in London,
and thai which marked 1t out from other
Sundays shows in a striking way how
active is the spirit of reform in this great
city and how splendidly the churches here
are adapting themselves to the popular de-
mand for a gospel of health and bread and
butter, one not occupied so much with the
other world as with the conditions of happi-
ness in this world. 1t was Citizen Sunday,
a day first observed in '93, and which, nat
urally, at first was observed on a small
scale and in the face of many pious pro-
tests There are still living in all coun-
tries those who hold that when Christ said
THE poor we have always with you," he
intended to sanctify poverty and make
the slum a sort of Established Church.
Many think that if you go on improving
the condition of the lower classes you will
soon throw Christian people out OF busi-
ness by depriving them of all opportunities
for benevolence. There are those, too,
who solemnly insist that the one duty of
the church is TO get souls converted; she
must not dabble in politics nor NEEDLE with
municipal life, and silly talk of this kind,
with the narrow spirit underlying 1t, was
what the London Reform Union met when
eight years ago it asked the London pulpits
to leave out of sight for one Sunday in
the year the city of the New Jerusalem,
where the many mansions are, and con-
slider what could be done for this city on
the Thame which, in gruesome contrast
with the mansions which adorn it, has still,
alas. wide stretches of overcrowded tene-
ments and a slum life so insanitary and
vicious that it beggars description.
Feeble the response at first, but after
eight years of steady progress "Citizen
Sunday has become so popular a feature
of the church life of London that upon it's
recurrence a week ago one might have
gone to four hundred metropolitan
churches, and in all of them he would
have heard nothing but the gospel Of NUM-
cipal responsibility and reform. In ar
ranging for this Sunday the London Re-
form Union presses into service a commit
tee of c~lergymen, representative Of all the
large denominations, and by this commit
tee a circular is sent to the London clergy
in general. The favorable responses this
year exceeded by fifty those of a year ago,
which is one Of the best evidences that
the movement has vitality and enthusiasm
behind it. Undoubtedly many c~lergymen
preached on the subject without taking
the trouble to say that they would, but CT
the four hundred who were under promise
to signalize the last Sunday in October by
q sermon on municipal life. about two hun
bred belonged to the Church of England,
the other two hundred being ministers of
other churches, Of which latter the list in
cluded sixty-eight Congregationalists, sixty
Methodists, twenty-seven Baptists, thir-
teen Unitarian, seven Presbyterian, and the
rest great scattered.
PROGRESS OF THE WORK.
The London Reform Union has for many
years been vigorously at work to improve
the government of the city and to better
the conditions of its working class citizens.
1t doesn't tackle directly the question OF
public morality, yet in all it does to inn
prove the material situation of poorly paid
and wretchedly housed workers it unques-
tionably tends to promote public morality.
1t is extremely solicitous in behalf of a
better home life for the masses, it's con-
tention being that the housing problem is
connected vitality with every other prob
lem. This question it never allows to rest.
In a recent pamphlet 1t is maintained by
this London Reform Union that inadequate
housing drives men to the public house, for
nothing but drink makes people forget the
hell they live in and the writer further
says: "What profits it, though we have
the finest educational system in the world,
if we allow the child to pass daily from the
school to surroundings which foster all that
is bad and stife all that is good? Why de-
mand shorter hours of labor If the factory
is but exchanged for the fetid slum? Other
nations press us harder and harder for in
dustrial supremacy, but in calculating the
causes which endanger our position we do
not sufficiently consider the physical and
mental degeneration produced in the work.
er by insanitary and overcrowded condi-
tons Of home life"
Housing conditions have improved some
what since General Booth startled the
world with his book on Darkest London
but it is only the fringe that has been
reached after all. Commenting editorially
upon the observance of citizen Sunday the
Daily News says: London is still far
from being either sober or clean. The Lon
don multitudes are still far from being
housed as they should be. There are vast
spaces in London where air and light, the
two PRIME requisites Of life, are known
rather in the desire than the possession.
Much has been done, but much more re-
mains to be done" The latest statistics
available show that in this great and
wealthy city there are nearly 4O0, 600 people
whose only conception of home life is linn
tied to a single room in some tenement.
OF this number 325,OOO live two or more in a
room and $1,000 six in a room, while in each
of S79 single rooms seven people were found
to be living. and in each of ten others
eleven persons. To say nothing Of the i'm
possibility of being moral and decent in
such conditions, where is the chance for
health and life? On areas where the Lon
don County Council has undertaken clear
ance schemes the death rate stood related
TO the rate for all London as two to one.
Everybody will admit that such clearances
have come none too soon. If London would
redeem herself from filth and disrepute
this work must go on with increasing
vigor, and 20 help forward this particular
branch of municipal progress is one of the
chief purposes of citizen Sunday.
TOPIC FOR II MINISTER'S.
In enlisting the clergy in this movement
the London Reform Union is in the habit
Of annually suggesting a topic. Two years
ago the ministers were asked to signalize