The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-13

| of the church going people or the Uni l ted Kingdom The figures of Church 1 Year Books for 1900 show that the l Church Of England provides sittlngs Ill l its diE-rent places of worship for few nS5re than seven million persons but l the allied bodies who are outside or 1 that fold, like Congregatlonallsts, Methodists, Baptists and Prespyterl- ans provide sittings for very nearly 1 eight millions. These figures were uls- puted at first, but committee appolnt- ed to look into them by the church ulo- cesan convention makes report Whlch does not disturb them to any serious extent At the very least Non Con- formity gives sitting room in it's places of worship for eight hundred thousand more than the state church, and from this the reasonable claim is made, ana does not seem to be successfully refu- ted, that in it's relative allegiance to what is called the Established church and the Churches of Dissenters ana Non- Conformists, England is pretty evenly divided, with a chance that Non- Conformity may have the advantage In politics the Non- Conformists are overwhelmingly liberal. So, at least, they were while Gladstone remained on inc scene. But since the liberal party has had divided leadership and espec- ially since the South African war De- came a dividing issue, their political standing is rather mixed one, so much so that a great many of them scarcely know themselves where they belong
 Upon the subject of politics and the war even Dr. Forsyth was in perpleXl- ty This just now is delicate subject with the Congregationalists of Eng land. Between Congregational mis- sionaries in South Africa and leading Conversational ministers at home there has been heated and bitter eontroVer- sy, and the badinage of strong words still goes on. The former, of course justify the war, whereas at first nearly all the latter strongly condemn It. At the beginning when feeling was not so high and there was a chance for peace full settlement, Dr. Forsyth, in common with most of his brethren, took strong grounds against war in his pulpit min istrations. It was looked upon then as Joseph Chamberlain's war. l Won- dered if that opinion of it had been re- vised. pr. Forsyth assured me that, so far as he could judge, it had not: cer- tainly not amongst Congresationalists' He admitted, however, that there had | been a change in the attitude of the Congregational pulpit on the subject. He himself had not referred to it in his sermons for long time. He had not felt that he could with prudence; it had become now, he said, too much of di- l ;,, ba oI, JtG al aspects had been obscured by politics and by a spurious patriotism. One could hardly now say anything against either the war itself or it's methods without being classed as traitor to his country.
 With a minister before me who was just completing seven years pastor ate in university town, himself, too, a university man, I could not help asking what he thought of university life to- day as regards morals and faith, in comparison with the standards of twenty years ago. The moral standard he puts higher The number of stu dents who dissipate and the number who take the course only because in certain grades of English life it is the | reduced. There are not hing like the disgraceful escapades there used to be. Summing up the moral improvements in characteristic sentence, he said, Better things are now the better form" But as to faith, in the old meaning of that term, he could not see that there had been any improvement. At Cambridge there are many who are preparing for the ministry. Putting those aside, as one must in judging un- iversity life by any religious test, l should say" said this careful observer, that the boys in our universities sim ply reflect the conditions outside. They are no worse and no better than the so- ciety out of which they come. In some ways we are not so well off religiously as we were a generation ago. Plutoc- racy has hold of us-just as it has it's grip upon the United States, and there is a corresponding dullness in religious life"
 This religious dullness Is evidently l having it's effect upon those who in Oth- CT conditions would be candidates for the Christian ministry. For a long 1 time dgnitares of the Church of Eng land have been deploring the fact that young men were not coming forward for holy orders in anything like the number in which they formerly came. The Bishop of London accounts for this largely by the fact that church livings are so much poorer than they were, owing to the universal decline of agri- culture and the consequent depreciation of land in this country With these l facts in mind 1t was only natural should ask Dr. Forsyth how it was in Non- Conformist circles, especially in his own denomination. There was, he said, a similar decrease in the number of men looking to the ministry as their life calling. He admitted, too, that salaries were distressingly small, and ! that in many country places chapes which formerly supported a pastor could no longer do 1t, and so were eith- CT abandoned or were trying to exist on cheap supplies But he could not think that the poor pay offered was the chief | discouragement. He rather found the chief reason in that prevalent religious dulness of which he had before spoken
 "But think" he said, in further expla- nation, "how many other respectable and influential callings are now open tC we'll educated young men. Think what a change the single innovation of elec-