The Decline of Religion

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · May 14, 1908

The Decline of Religion

SOME significant statistics concerning church-membership and church attendance in Greater New York are given by a leading magazine in the following paragraph:—

The Protestant Episcopal church, which in point of property is the richest in the city, has a total of only 90,997 communicants. The Methodist Episcopal church has 43,728 members, the Presbyterian 45,873, the Baptist 38,590, and the Lutheran 37,934. Even when taken in the aggregate, these constitute but a small fraction of the population of the city. The number of Protestants who keep away from church in New York City more than equals the whole population of Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

There is no reason to believe that other large cities in America would make any better showing in proportion to their population; and all efforts to evangelize these great centers of population do not seem to be sufficient to counteract the steady downward tendency. If all the Sodoms and Gomorrahs of the present day should be destroyed by fire, there would be many more great conflagrations than are now recorded.