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The Courier-Review.
be found wanting. What the church needs is a faith like Donier's which maintains that "all truth has in it the power to authenticate itself." The searching, critical, often destructive spirit should be encouraged. Let it be said of America what has already been said of Germany by Stuckenberg, pastor of the American church at Berlin. "Fear," he says, "is a species of infidelity that has been banished from Germany." This is the voice that comes from the land where the Reformation first asserted itself. May it also be the birth-place of a new reformation as fearless, potent and wide-reaching as the old.
An attitude favorable to higher criticism would strengthen the position of the church; but a further step is needful. The influence upon religion of the intense scientific tendencies must be recognized and made to assist rather than hinder the progress of the church. It has long been the custom in the church to judge all scientific theories on the basis of established theological notions. The majority of church members have followed in the steps of the old scholastics who, with a Bible in one hand and an Aristotle's logic in the other, set forth incontrovertible theories of life in the natural kingdom and in the spiritual as well. Gradually science has changed all this. It has drawn men's minds from the realms of mystical abstraction, and taught them to seek a grasp upon realities. It has taught men to see in the form and color of the slightest flower a meaning and a purpose. In all activity the working of law is recognized. Shall it be said that the effect of this is to make men pagans? True science may have induced too great a distaste for the artificial forms of the church. It may have condemned too severely the adherence to creed. But if it has done this, it has wonderfully expanded men's ideas of God. That great product of modern science, the theory of evolution, has led men to see order where before was confusion. It teaches union between man and nature instead of opposition. Above all it emphasizes the immanence of God in human destinies in place of the old doctrine of His interference. If the points of view held by the
Christian evolutionist were adopted by the church in general, new direction and energy would be given to the forces of Christianity.
This advance would naturally be followed by the adoption of scientific methods of church work. To maintain its power as a civilizing agent, the church must make use of instruments which science places at its disposal. A recent article on "Impending Paganism in New England," by De Witt Hyde, of Bowdin college, shows by statistics that church attendance in rural New England is on the decrease. The census of fifteen counties shows that of 133,445 families, 67,842 are not attendants upon any church. What is worse, the church lacks vitality and are in bad straits financially. The author ascribes this unfortunate condition largely to the fact that the antiquated forms of belief are severely insisted upon, and that sermonizing takes the place of preaching. Observation in the rural districts and small towns of the West would, I believe, reveal much the same general situation. For example, in the principal church of a small town in Kansas two weeks were spent in a serious wrangle over the comparative saving power of sprinkling and immersion as modes of baptism. Internal disturbances and quarrels with other churches recur with painful frequency. Although there are six denominations represented in the town, few of the substantial business men attend church, and the preachers depend largely for support on the income from entertainments and artificial revivals.
What is the remedy for this great lack of interest, and the failure of the church to meet the requirements of modern life? In addition to what has already been suggested, I believe it lies in the adoption of a different system of training for the preacher. He needs to study humanity more and the humanities perhaps less. Some of the Latin, Greek and Hebrew in the theological course might well be replaced by the direct study of man and his environment. The theological student dwells too much in a realm of ideas. He knows well what men ought to be, but he knows too little how they are to be brought to that perfection. He needs