FALLING BEHIND | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 19, 1881

FALLING BEHIND.

REV. DR. HARRISON, Congressional Chaplain, states in the Wesleyan Christian Advocate that the Methodist Episcopal church, during the twenty-seven years from 1852 to 1879, has failed to keep pace with the growth of population in the Middle States by 27 per cent., and in the “Border States,” so-called, viz., Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, the falling behind has been 40 per cent. In the New England States he says the showing is better; but taking the nineteen Northern States together the M. E. church, which in 1852 had one member out of 22 population, in 1879 had but one in 25—a relative decrease of over 11 per cent. The Advocate says: “There is in the whole field a manifest failure to keep pace with the growth of population, a fact which is profoundly suggestive of waning influence.” Rev. Dr. Fuller, of the Atlantic Methodist Advocate says that it is no better in the Southern States. In thirty-five years the M. E. Church South has not doubled, while the population has nearly tripled. He adds that, owing to the laxity of the conditions and the pressure for new members, irreligious persons have been brought in with damaging effect.