The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-12-06
MEN DON'T GO TO CHURCH.
That Is, the Protestant Church-The
True Church Still Retains Them.
(From the New York Sum


(From the New York Sum-
THE average American business man
has outgrown the average preacher, "
says the Chicago Inter Ocean, in un-
dertaking to explain why men are not
going to church in these days to the
extent they did in former times.
The specified tons of the Chicago pa
per are that lin trying to formulate
religion by the rules and in the terms
of science, many preachers have cut
loose the ship of faith upon a bound
less sea of mental speculation" that
many preachers appear to think that
men can be led to do right without
having any definite principles by which
to do right; that the business man"
sees many preachers and churches
repuGiating all appeals to fear and
trying to maintain themselves by love
alone"
1t may be true. nay, it is true, that
there are these deficiencies in modern
preaching, but do they explain men s
staying away from church? Is it not
true also that the very churches in
which there is this sort of preaching
are those most largely attended, that
| is, of the churches in which the single
element of attraction is the preaching?
Diminished church attendance, where
there is such a diminution, is not fairly
attributable to the preachers. If the
people are earnest in their religious
beliefs and crave spiritual food they
are not critical of the preacher, so long
as he is in earnest like themselves.
When they set to carping at his SER
mons it is sign that they are not
hungry for the food. In times of re-
ligious revival the humblest the plain
est preacher inspired by an ardent
oil ic-n oil .,rr1,
there is in their hearts the demand,
the supply is sure to come. At the time
of the great awakening in 1857 the
preachers in New York were not ADLER
men than their successors are now,
and not greater pulpit orators, but the
fire of religious belief in them kindled
responsive flame of religious emo
ton in the hearts of the people, for the
crowds who listened to their appeals
were already burning with a desire for
the word of salvation.
AS it is now, the churches which
make their appeal to religious senti-
ment to devout emotion, and hold up
before men the idealism of religion
are about as full as ever 1t is only
those pulpits which depend on insult
ficient intellectual ability simply to
draw the people, or are not clever
enough adopts in clap-trap, that have
been "outgroWn by the average
American business man" When the
clap-trap suits vulgar tastes, it is now
a greater drawing card than ever, as
the example we have mentioned illus
trates.
The fault is absence of religious faith
in the pulpit and in the people who
otherwise would fill the pews. Wher-
ever that faith is found the churches
are full of people who have other
thoughts and emotions than of criti-
cism of the sermon and carping at the
preacher The fire that warns them
is in their own hearts. The magnet
which attracts them to the church is
not the expected eloquence of the
preacher, but the eloquent religious
faith with which their own hearts are
charged. Only when men really believe
in the world to come and that all other
profit is snare and a delusion so long
as they lose their souls in its pursuit
will the churches be as thronged as are
the marts of trade and the stock ex-
oh