respect; many of those who thus far conform to Church usages having very little faith, there is reason to fear, in what is ordinarily said and done in our synagogues. Thus the case, as it presents itself to me, though not as bad as our critic represents it, is still very bad. There is, no doubt, a great deal in the world about us to-day to lend countenance to the cant one hears about religion being an affair for women and children only. This indifference to Church claims exhibited by "the masculine sex" has doubtless resulted, in part from conditions and causes alleged by "A Non-Church-Goer." Men are unquestionably less dependent to-day upon the clergy for moral teaching and guidance than they once were, while they hold many of the dogmas of theology, once generally and fervently believed in, to be nothing better than ingenious refinements or conceits. And this being the just mental attitude of many men toward things that the Church is supposed to indorse, it is not strange, considering how little sound logic there is in the world, that all that the Church insists upon is by some supposed to be just as unreliable; and hence blank infidelity.

But there are other things that repel men from the portals of the Church, or which make church-going a weariness sometimes to men who nevertheless will go. The best that can be said of "the service," as a whole, often is that it is a capital discipline for patience. There is such an absence of evidence, at times, of any well-defined purpose having brought a congregation together, that a suspicion of the unreality of the whole business will now and then steal over a thoughtful on-looker. Then there is the dreary, mechanical reading of the Scriptures that one occasionally still encounters, with such a want of fitness often in the selections read to the conditions and actual needs of men to-day. Then the preaching is too often about men, or issues that are no longer of importance in the world's regard, the preacher waxing warm in defense of some fiction of theology or other, or trying to interest his hearers in some barren bit of ecclesiasticism. These things are hard to bear by men of intelligence who go to church, while they doubtless deter some men from going. In simple fairness it should be said, however, I think, that such afflictions are but seldom encountered to-day; for our preachers, as a class, it may be justly claimed, are not only sincere and earnest, but discerning and intellectually alert.

The things just enumerated, then, make up, in my judgment, a substantial installment toward an answer to the question, why so many men stand aloof from the Church to-day, or show it only a formal respect. But there are items of importance still to be added-items which I find in "the tendencies of the age." Against these tendencies "it is useless to fight," however, says our "Non-Church-Goer," assuming that they are always and invariably good; whereas, to me, some of the most dominant of them seem to be desperately bad. Of one thing experience makes us well aware, of the fact, namely, that there are powerful influences at work in life as we know it, that indispose men from thinking seriously about the things of religion, and which harden them against all its appeals and constraints. Men are absorbed, for example, in the pursuit of material interests as they never were before, making life for many a fierce and continuous contention, and so leaving little time, and less inclination in them, for the quest after "the true riches." Then the rapid increase of wealth in the nations of Christendom has begotten sensuous tastes in multitudes, who accordingly prefer to worship in the opera-house rather than in the church. Or if the Church is to win them on one day out of seven, it must bid for their patronage by furnishing similar attractions to those that the opera supplies. Now, will not any sensible and observant man living in New York to-day, or familiar with the life of any of the great cities of Christendom, say that these things, with those before specified, have much more to do with the prevalent neglect of church claims than the discoveries of science have, or than the assaults of an iconoclastic infidelity? Many men of some Christian faith are, no doubt, seriously disturbed by these; some may have lost all confidence in the distinctive truths of Revelation, and have consistently ceased from all show of respect for the Church. But the cases are comparatively few, I suspect, either because men have so little time to look into scientific or critical objections to religious truth, or because, having looked, they find that there is nothing in the objections that discredits any essential element in that truth, and so they conclude, for awhile longer, to "lag behind the age."

I, for one, have little fear for Christianity or for the Church, from "the march of intellect," or from the advance of science; science, as I understand it, making no pretensions to be considered a rival of Christianity, nor having anything to offer

as a substitute for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a good deal of a hazy sort of doubt abroad just now, begotten very largely by rumors of what research and criticism have done to discredit the doctrines and institutions of religion. But a great deal of the babblement one hears to-day about "progress" is really afflicting to discerning souls, science having as yet done literally nothing to unsettle a single essential article of the Christian faith or to weaken a single hope which that faith inspires. As long as the Church continues to embody and to teach that faith, even though very imperfectly, it will not cease to attract the confidence and reverence of mankind. As long as sin and misery are in the world, some other and better method of dealing with them and of healing them will be necessary than is known to the civil magistrate or to the police authorities.

To anticipate anything like a speedy collapse, therefore, of ecclesiastical organizations is, in my judgment, simply silly. Predictions of some such issue have been often let loose in the social air, but little has come of them. It is amusing to read to-day M. Comte's large concession, that his followers might occupy Christian temples as they should fall into disuse, seeing how few have "changed hands” in the interval of half a century. There is a good deal in and about the churches to provoke men of progressive views to anger; but no sensible man will contend that an institution otherwise good may be discarded, simply because it is not always worthily represented; else what ground of respect would be left for any institution or instrument of civil society? Claims that the Church may be disbanded can only be reasonably preferred when it has been shown that the work it has professed to do may be done better, or that it is actually being better done, by some other instrumentality. "A NonChurch-Goer" seems to hint in one place that such is now the fact, where he tells us that "science is to-day doing more for morality than the Church"- one of his rashly impetuous utterances. Yet even he feels the need of a ministry for his "higher nature," which need science does not meet, we must infer. Where else, then, will he look for it? What school or society of men, other than the Christian Church, makes any sort of pretension of supplying the need? None that I know. While, touching interests of a more tangible sort, it may be claimed for the Christian Church, I believe, in spite of all its defects and failures,

that its disappearance would prove to be a widely-felt disaster. It inspires gentle and humane feelings into men, women, and children as no other institution or agency even pretends to have the capacity of doing; it preaches, and to a large extent practically applies, the doctrine of human brotherhood, urging persistently the duty of mutual helpfulness; it prescribes a wholesome discipline for individual and collective life; educates men in practical virtues; and begets an enthusiasm for goodness in multitudes of men and women which makes itself felt in the outlying world. The Church is even charged with intemperance in the vastness and the costliness of the enterprises she undertakes in behalf of degraded tribes of mankind abroad, and in the manifold provision she makes for the ignorant and helpless at Her theologies in parts may be "antiquated,”—“ dry but her religion has been, and is, a thing of life and

home. leaves," power.

J. H. RYLANCE.

VOL. CXXXVII.-NO. 320.

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