America’s Religious Crisis
The Rev. George C. Lorimer, a prominent Baptist clergyman of New York City, says that America has arrived at a religious crisis. This was the subject of a recent discourse, in which he set forth that “in the last hundred years more than twenty-three million foreigners have come to our shores, and they are still coming. The majority are not from Scotland, England, Ireland, and the north of Europe, but they are Magyars, or are from Italy and Southern Europe, and have no inclination to our belief.” From this Dr. Lorimer sees two perils arising; namely, “desecration of the Sabbath, and increase in places of amusement.” “We live for money by day, and pleasure by night,” he said, and ere long it would “no longer be a question of opening them [saloons] for a few hours on Sunday, but they will be open every minute of the week.” “The crisis is real,” he declared; and “it is not confined to New York alone, but to the whole nation, from ocean to ocean. The condition is such that it breaks a minister’s heart.” This is not the testimony either of an ignorant man or of an alarmist. The prophecy of Joel 2: 15–17 is the proper rule of action for such a time.”