Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1906-04-16
THE pecAoENcE OF RELIGION.

100000 in that city less than 5V,VoO persons were in the habit of attend ing church. and those who did attend were mostly women and children. In other words, the largest city in America was from an orthodox Chris tian point of view a heather city, and the men had lost all interest in re- ligion except as matter of form in the record of their lives. At chris tenings, marriages and deaths the preacher was called in as sort of spiritual notary public, to take the usual acknowledgements, and there his usefulness ended. ln all other matters his sphere of influence was limited almost exclusively to women and children, who needed him least, while the men who make up the workaday world, mold it's rules of conduct and determine it's standards and character were living in pagan ignorance or almost atheistical indif- ference to the Word of God. Most of the men who did attend church came in spirit of courtesy to their wives, as a social obserance of good form." wearing their religion either as a cloak for hypocrisy or as badge of social responsibility. That this ap- palling state of things was prevalent to greater or less extent in other cities was undisputed.
 The Rev. Dr. Ritchey, rector of Sl. Paul's church, in Westport suburb of Kansas City. 1amented the fact not long ago in a remarkably frank discourse, that a minister common ly associates only with women and children: that he has become a re- ligious sissy-"a male in clerical pet ticoats.' Commenting upon the fact that the public is ceasing to be re- ligious, the New York Sun said: Bible reading has been discontinued among the laity to very great ex- tent. Family prayers, once an in variable custom in pious families, are now almost wholly abandoned T he prayer meeting preserves only mere semblance of life. Sunday schools have fallen off in attendance. Every denominational yearbook, al most, records a falling off in church attendance" A far cry, indeed, from the days fifty years ago, and even later. when parents arose be. fore wintry dawns and wrestled in prayer for the spiritual Welfare o1 their children; when preachers thun- dered from their pulpits in crowded churches the wrath of the Almighty; when religion was the supreme fact. of every mans existence.
 In searching for the causes of this religious apathy some writers attrib- ute it to the modern advance in edu- cation. the increased intelligence hich led men to refuse to accept thing their reason rejected, and es- pecially to the revolt in loving hearts against the stern dogmas of theology which condemned unfepent- ant sinners to endless punishment, to hell of fire and birthstone in which their loved ones, perhaps, were doomed to burn and suffer eXcruciat- ine toftures forever They rebelled against the cruel idea that because of the transeression of one man thensands of years ago an iae%orable Goa had decreed that mNriads of hH- man creatures should be doomed be- fore their birth to hopeless damna- ton while only a few elect would be saved, against the monstrons article eff faith that an innocent newborn habe would be forever damned if il died before it was baptized by a minister: and against the pronounce mont by religious authority hat ii a n.i4take were made in the form of hapti,m. and the hapless babe were srrinkIed instead of immersed, or vice versa. it would be damned any how. Perhaps the chief moving cause of the decadence of religions hold on the people was the growing discon- tent with the universal attempt Of the preachers of eery sect and creed to put off and satisfy mankind with the hope of a pearly, eolden=payed heaven in answer to the cry oi the masses for q better share of the blessines of earth. More and more men are demanding a relieien@ taat will meet the requirements = this lie rather than cffer The a1gl fs' promise of rewards in some rr1.'3@s--l fq.Hle state of existence.
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