The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-30
Crime in Birmingham.

Does any of us know, e. E., for a cer- tainty, that there Is less wickedness in Birmingham today in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, than was here ten years ago?-less gambling in all its forms, less theving in all It's forms, less drunkenness-fewer homicides who slay the bodies of their fellows, and fewer who slay their own souls while they slay the souls of their companions In guilt and shame? I am not asking, does any of us think; for I myself think that there has been improvement: but does any of us know, for a certainty? Surely we all ought to know, we members of the churches we all ought to know that this city of ours which has strded forward materially as in seven league boots, during the past ten years; we ought to know that 1t has also taken forward and upward some not able step, moral and spiritual, toward a purer and a larger righteousness.
 I answer that we do not know: and there is immense rebuke to us all church mem bers in this confession. For 1t means 1t must mean, unless we are utterly astray to what was achieved with the gospel of Jesus Christ In the middle and closing years of the first century-it must mean that the vast majority of the communi- cants of our churches in Birmingham are content to be simply passive Christians; to put and leave the work of Christian izing the un-Christian entirely in the hands of their pastors and priests.
 How can we avoid concluding that the great body of the communicants of every church are lacking altogether In the mis- sionary spirit the spirit which possesses the eman or woman who thinks that Il religion is not worth having which is not worth sharing: the spirit which possessed those disciples of the early time who were fit to be named a holy priesthood a chosen generation, a peculiar people, not only because they had been called, but also because they accepted it as their re- sponsiblity to call others, out of dark ness Into light?
 The average lay member of any church appears to think that he Is doing his full duty to God and man if he succeeds In merely holding fast his own personal re- ligion, in spite of the world, the flesh and the devil. The larger obligation to spread his religion by sharing 1t is not recognized. It Is this fact that led a few years ago to the founding of the order in our church known as the Brother hood of St. Andrew: an order of men, lay communicants. pledged to do what every devout communicant ought to regard it as at once his obligation and privilege to do; an order which, in spite of the great good it has achieved and Is achieving. will eventually do more harm than good
 
 conviction that the obligation of the brotherhood man to do missionary service for Christ Is an obligation from which other communcants are dissolved who are not members of the brotherhood. The obligations of the brotherhood man are his. not because he is a member of the order of St. Andrew, but because he is communicant of the church of Christ; and this is to say that every communicant of the church of Christ is either trying to do what the St. Andrews Brotherhood men are trying to do, or else he is fail- ing to live mp 70 his obligations as com municant.
 Every Communcant's Duty.
 A parish with 800 communicants ought to be a parish with 800 vital centers of missionary effort; every one accepting it as his duty and privilege to help make other communcants; every devout layman and laywoman dissatisfied with their own