Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-08-03
For Sunday Reading.
British and American Methodism
Al seres 81 Opinions.

parted from the standards of primitive
simplicity still preserved in England
seems to have been impressed upon a
recent British visitor. In our issue of
June Is we recorded the visit to our
shores of Mr.. f. w. Perks, NJ. P, a
prominent British Methodist layman,
whose mission was in the interests of a
brotherhood "for binding more closely
together the federated forces of Meth
odism turnout the world" In letter
contributed to the Methodist Recorder
London, July 1D, upon his return, he
reports the sympathetic welcome his
ideas received, and IN addition draws
some interesting comparisons between
the outward aspects of Methodism
presented by America and England. A
matter of some apparent surprise to
him was zone of the wealthiest and
most luxuriously equipped Methodist
churches in New York off Fifth avenue"
He describes it in these terms:
THE church was carpeted thruout.
The low rostrum was adorned with
flowers. Elegantly dressed ladies
famed themselves. All around was
somber elegance. Owing to the heat,
the families were rapidly leaving New
York, but the congregation was good.
The galleries, however, were empty,
but for that most i'm portant and potent
feature, the quartet God preserve
British Methodism-from the quartet!
The Fifth avenue church spends, l am
told an enormous sum annually upon
these four singers. They are certainly
very accomplished performers. The
music they sang was Of a high order;
but after all a Methodist church is not
a music hall. The finest singing l
heard while away, and the largest con-
gregations saw, were at the famous
st. James church in Montreal, archi-
tecturally, / suppose, one of the finest
buildings Methodsnl can show, and at
the large colored Methodist church at
Washington, where my boy and I were
the only whites in congregation num-
bering some 1900. At both these
churches the singing was congrega-
tional and very attractive. Personally
did not feel at home at the Fifth ave-
nue. church until we came to the SER
mon. SO far as I was concerned the
preacher redeemed the situation. His
sermon was preached and not read
Ellis language was scholarly and or
nate; he preached the living gospel
with manifest power The Methodist
minister Of the Fifth avenue church is
no clerical sycophant tempering his
teaching to the tastes of his flock. -.
Unfortunately l had only one Sun
day to spend in New York. I felt 1
should like to see the two extremes
of New York Methodism-somethi
corresponding to our Gothic suburban
Methodist church at home at one end
of the scale, and the crowded demo-
cratic mission hall at the other. I
soon found, however. that there is
nothing in New York, nothing in Chi
cago nothing in Philadelphia, nothing
so far as l could learn in any other
American city similar to the great mis-
sion halls holding two to four thous-
and people which British Methodism
has in recent years erected in our great
cities. 1t is quite true that there are
small mission celters' in the poorer
parts Of New Yorl. where the rich up
town churches do mission work on q
small scale. The explanation, or
should prefer to call it, the excuse,
for the absence CT the great mission
hall, given to me in New York, and
also in Chicago, is that the city is
deserted and the population too cos
l walked on Sunday night
thru these empty streets. The tram
cars were crowded. the music halls
were open; tens of thousands of people
thronged the roacs; half the shops in
the poorer streets seemed open; the
saloons were doing a roaring trade"
Put into a brief compass his views
of American Methodism are expressed
in the following comparative method:
81. The correctional spirit which
pervades British Methodism, binding
our people so c,osely together, does
not exist to anything like the same
degree in America. Methodism there
is more congreg ational. The circuit
system seems in the large cities to
be comparatively rare.
40 The lay preacher is almost ex-
tinct, Nothing surprised my American |
Methodist audiences more than to be
told that out of the $4,000 or $1,000 |
sermons preached next Sunday in the |
ehapels and mission halls of British
Wesleyan Metho'dism, nearly 10000 |
will be preached by unordained laymen.
And yet this is the class more than
any other from which England draws
ner political speakers, her municipal |
rulers, her Labor NJ. P.'s
"3 American Methodism does not |
seem to me to be az democratically |
governed as In the old land; nor have
ler laity. as great a share in control J