WEEK OF PENITENCE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 8, 1900

WEEK OF PENITENCE.

Delaware (N. Y.) Gazette.

The Board of Bishops of the Methodist Church issued to all Methodist churches the world over, a letter appointing a week of penitence and prayer. The bishops prepared the letter after studying statistics and reports, showing a decrease of church membership and a falling off in attendance. They specify the causes, as follows: labor troubles and the church standing aloof from a solution of them; neglect of the submerged tenth; Methodism above its business, and permitting the Salvation Army to do its work; speculations and vagaries of Christian Science; no more camp-meetings; light literature; character of amusements, and too many of them; side-tracking of moral and spiritual forces, necessary to build up a church, and the lack of self-denial; no more revivals—given up because some people make fun of them; criticism of preachers and of sacred things; higher criticism of the Bible,