attaches to abstention. The artisan class not only remains aloof from, but even contemptuous of, churches and preachers; no appeal ever produces so much as a ripple on the surface of their indifference. As soon as the children in our Sunday schools reach adolescence they become lost to religious influences, or, at any rate, the male portion of them drifts away. In any ordinary church service women form the overwhelming majority of the worshippers. There are several ways of accounting for this, chief among which is the fact that for the most part women have not yet come to feel, as men must feel, the dissonance between pulpit Christianity and prevailing economic conditions in the modern world. But women are coming to take their place in business and in the professions; and the more this tendency develops, the more certain is it that women will stay away from church as men are doing. Of course it is obvious that, even already, the women who compose the congregations in most places of worship are but a small minority of their sex.

On the Continent this falling away of the people from the churches is more marked than in this country. Educated Germans frequently express their astonishment on coming to England at the fact that so many people go to church. This is a phenomenon to which they are quite unaccustomed at home, and the reason for the difference is fairly simple. In this country the social life of the lower middle classes centres to

a considerable extent around the church. The church is the club or public house, the place to which people must go in order to meet one another and enjoy one another's company. In Germany this is not so; the ordinary centre of social life is of quite a different kind, with the consequence that people do not feel any need for the church as a meeting-place. Once let the same set of conditions be established here, and we shall have just the same result; the middle class will do what other classes have already done, they will stay away from church. At present, in many districts the division of classes is plainly marked by the fact that the artisans meet at the alehouse while those a little higher up the social scale meet at church. The vicar of the parish is the head of one social set, and the Nonconformist minister of another, but neither of them touches the masses; the workers prefer another kind of club.

The church

centre.

That this is recognised to some extent is evident from the number of devices which have been adopted of late years in order to attract people to church. The institu- as a social tional church, as it is called, represents the most advanced of these, but every church tries to follow more or less on the same lines. The list of the social activities of any vigorous church in any populous centre to-day is lengthy and elaborate. It is noteworthy that these various organisations are similar to those existing in connection with successful secular institutions of

a social or educational character; they are not distinctively religious at all. The discovery has been made by their promoters that something of the kind is imperative if people are to be got into the churches. So we have literary societies, gymnasia, swimming clubs, photographic clubs, rambling clubs, tennis and croquet clubs, billiard-rooms, smoking-rooms, restaurants, and a host of others running in connection with church services and religious meetings. It would be foolish to decry them, for they serve a useful purpose, but it is plainly evident that they have sprung into existence in order to supply what will be sought elsewhere if the churches do not rise to the occasion. These things could flourish just as well if there were no religious services whatever associated with them. They are a confession that the churches are ceasing to hold their own. What a surprise Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, or even John Wesley or George Whitefield, would receive if they could behold the institutional church of to-day! I was recently told of a philanthropic and public-spirited employer of labour who erected a number of model dwellings for his workpeople in the neighbourhood of one or two churches (also erected by himself), in the hope that the churches would be well filled and be the means of maintaining a high level of character and conduct in that particular community. There was no public-house in the district to act as counter attraction, but somehow the tenants of those model dwellings did not go

to church until the usual club facilities began to be provided; to prayers and sermons they paid no heed.

All this is so well known that some may consider it useless to draw attention to it. But as, apparently, there are very few among the ecclesiastical leaders of the day who are willing or able to recognise the root causes of the tendency which everybody admits, it is as well to face the situation before proceeding to examine the whole movement of which this is but a symptom. It is absolutely clear that church-going is on the decline, and that the ordinary gospel preached from the pulpit has no power to influence the public. The curious thing is that religious teachers and administrators should be as well content as they seem to be with this state of things, and should resent so warmly any suggestion that their gospel may be at fault. A fairly prominent theologian stated not long ago, that while he did not deny what was taking place, he was not in the least perturbed by it, for he believed that the Gospel of Christ had never appealed to more than a remnant of the world's total population, and never would. This conviction must have been rather comforting to this particular gentleman, especially as, like so many of his class, he stands on fairly good terms with the world in all ordinary respects. But for the rest of us this consideration is not quite so comforting. If Christianity is a real message to humanity -a message of universal application, and not

confined to any one age or clime-it should not be losing its grip to-day, and it is impossible for a lover of mankind to look on with equanimity at the increasing alienation between the churches and the masses. It is pathetic-nay, more than pathetic, it is dreadful-to see the churches engaged in strife or competition with one another, while the great world passes by unheeding. It is only too sadly true that very many churches are having a hard fight to keep their heads above water, and that the minister's first aim in every such case is to make a business success of the institution if he can. As often as not, he looks with anything but favour upon the establishment of some other Christian organisation in his immediate neighbourhood, even though it be of the same faith and order as his own. The principle of competition and trade rivalry is as observable here as anywhere else. The religious public is such a limited one that the success of one church means the weakening of another; and it becomes requisite that the minister should be a man who is able to "draw "—that is, draw from other churches-the congregation required to make the business a financial success. Often enough the minister of the church is regarded as a salaried business manager, whose duty it is to see that the balance comes out on the right side at the end of the year, and that the establishment holds its own in public favour. The most saddening feature of this tendency is that it almost compels a minister to lose sight of what should be the