The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1909-07-13
Why the Church in New York wanes
and Siekens.

and Sickens.
Ray STANDARD Baker, writing in the
July American Magazine on the god
lessness Of New York, puts his finger
on the core of the causes for the de.
cay Of the church in New York City,
He says:
"The plain fact is, the church, even
the institutional church, Is still content
with religion that is thing apart,
that concerns only small, superficial
things, that deals with children. Can
any religion really live that does not
apply itself frankly to every side Of
human life business, industry, bank.
ing, tenement houses, land owning, in
short the whole of life Or can the
church recover from its present decad-
emit condition until It strikes to the
very roots OF social conditions
"The rich people Of the uptown church
indeed have the poor on their conscienoes
as never before. To meet the eondi.
ton they have built institutional
churches good idea, 20 far a. II goes.
They are willing 10 pay a large pro
portion of the expenses Of maintenance,
or even all Of the expenses; they are
willing that the institutional churches
should be finer than their own ehurches
they win even go down and help with
the clubs, classes and Sunday Schools.
In all these superficial things, in the
singing and praying, they are willing
70 cooperate; but that is az far as
they have got at present. There tho
cooperation stops short.
when il comes to extending their
religion to co-opera ton in business
and politics, to banking and land-own-
mess is business-and religion must be
kept out Of ii They have a growing
idea that the church, If il Is to sur
yive must command the lives Of working
men chow much we have heard Of eThe
Church Of the Working Men, srhe
Church and the Foreigner and 80 on
but they are not themselves willing to
let religion command their own lives,
They worship with the working man
and then turn around and charge hiIn
an exhorbitant rental for the home he
lives In, they take fat profits on the
necessaries of life, they work women
and little children long hours al low
wages-aud out OF the proceeds they
live luxurionsly, while the workingman
scTapas along miserabiy in his tene-
ments No. IL is not real--this rel-
gion II is Brother only on Sunday
and the masses Of grown men and wo-
men in poor neighborhoods know IL
They prefer the honest opcnness Of the
saloon, the frank eheapness Of the nick.
el theatre, where they can pay for
what they get, to the doubtful pargess
of the church.
$50 the church wanes and sickens in
New York A few earnest churches
and missions drag men here and there
from the gutter, but the gutter itself.
the gutter Of indebtedness of the op
preston Of the weak and the luxury Of
the strong, still enga4s rs thousands
and carries them down to ruin. Much
of the reconstructiye power and vision
is outside the church, not inside, Il Isl
found in settlements, charity and civic
organizations and among socialists
ut is only when the poor devils
down town in the McAnley Mission
surrender and admit religion to the
whole Of their lives, shat they are re
and the rich devils uptown
can achieve reconstruction IN no other
way. Nor can the church be saved by
giving little money for missions, nor
BY going down to the working man on
Sunday: it must be All nothing"