The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-04-19
N THE RELIGIOUS WORLD
What Church Folk Are Think
ing Abont and Doing
THE CIT1'S CHANCE.
The international Sunday Schoo Les,
son for -ipri! Il Is, warning ana
J~Dyitation.' Matt. II. 2O-3c.
Nv William t. FILLS.

OF preachers. : 1'D
strong men who have gone thIther.
determined to move the n~letropoifs
have been swallowed up by 1t. Inc
city has proved too big for the man.
Which is a p~resent-day commentary
upon the arraignment by Jesus Or
the Galilean cities wherein ne hiTlSeii
had taught and
The city is the days moral and re
ligious problem. A feeting glimpse
into the white slave" traffic OF New
York, the diabolical vending OF CO.
caine among Phiiadelphia children,
the wholesale graft in Piitsburg, re-
Veais to the ordinary person some
what OF the potency of the force OF
evil at work IN a large city. Vice is
most active in the centers of heaviest
congestion. The impulses Of morality
and Spirituality make least headway
there. The city has resisted the
preacher from the days OF Caper-
naum until now.
TIE City "a n Battlefield.
Because even Jesus did not find
the cities easy to move is no reason
Why the fight should be abandoned.
He has given to the church Of today
power and agencies and allies and
advantages which he himself did not
possess. The old fashion Of aban-
dOning the sections of the city where
the struggle q gon hardest is be-
tnS cndlSe0 DE many OeuOi1 HdSOtS.
Halt a dozen downtown churches
An New York have lately determined
TO stick, and to adapt their ministry
no the nenw conditions and needs.
The Presbyterians have consolidated
TWO failing churches into one Labor
Temple" with seven dayS-a-Week ser
vice to the ne~ighbOrhood.
The city must be given the old gOs-
pei. in contemporaneous form. Dowie
had great conception and proved the
Willingness Of people to follow a lead
er with big ideas. when he and his
Restoration Host" invaded New
York. The test broke Dowie. but he
came nearer to stirring that huge city
in the name Of religion, than any
other Christian movement before or
since. The machine-made city cam
paigns' Of the reVivalists have at
least this point Of merit: they the
aimed at h arousal OF the entire
community.
For the city. as a city. must an
Swer for its attitude toward the Good
News. The woes" which Jesus pro-
against his home city. and
other Galledn towns. and his utter
ances concerning Jerusalem, prove
mat. The craven supineness of
philadelphia. the shameless moral
laXity OF San Francisco may not be
shifted from the shoulders of Chris
ton citizens. The conduct OF a body
is 10 be laid to the charge of all of
its individual members. Since a city's
faith is more important than its sub
ways or Eky-ScraperS and since as
DR., G. Campbell Morgan says. the
sin Of the cities was that thew re-
pented not" it behooves Christian men
and women to ask whether or not
they are thinking in large enough
terms concerning the cities of our
time.
The Peril OF Privilege.
The Niaces of privilege are the
places of peril. The high places are
not the safe places. The stricter &C
counting required of favored commu-
mites and individuals was d pro-
nounced teaching Of Jesus. The
cities OF B~ethsaida, Chorazin, Gamer
naum and Jerusalem had heard His
voice, and needed it not; therefore
their plight was worse than Tyre,
Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah. ."ro
whom much is given, of him shall
much be required"
This is the danger of living in q
tiHe when the privileges of Christian
life and work are limitless. and when
the fullest Christian teaching is com
i~nonplace. The plight of the pious.
who amid the blazing light choose
darkness, is POSSIBLY worse than the
piight of the heather over whom
~ 81 III IloIe Oh the TeSOGSl-
hilty of the Christians at home for
ne exercise Of their highest spiritual
functions, has been sounding with in
creased volume in the contempora-
neous discussion of foreign missions.
1t is sad to know as little as the
heather know; it is dangerous to
know as much as Christians know
and TO do as little.
The Best for h Least.
Inc consolation which JaSuS seam
ed to have, as he turned from the
needless cities upon whom he. the
meek, mad yet poured mighty de-
n~unclationS, was that although they
IN 1helr pomp and pride had rejected
MN, there was yet Il of
loWH ones, whose eyes hld been
opened to the truth. Men are not
admitted into the kingdom of heaven
toy diplomas or worldly wisdom AS
Jesus thanked God, Thou didSt hide
these things from the wise and un-
derstandine. and didst reveal them