CHRISTIAN CITIES AND CHRISTIAN NATION.
“The world has never yet been blessed with a real Christian city,” says G. C. Lorimer, D.D. “In Greater New York there are 636,000 out-of-church Protestants, who are practically opposing the faith they profess, and the recent census taken in New York and in Liverpool and London of church attendance reveals a woful indifference to the ministration of the sanctuary. The disregard of the Sabbath, the tricks, frauds, and schemes in business, and the ebb in public conscience, all demonstrate clearly that our centers of population are far from being Christian in deed and thought.” Dr. Lorimer could have found practically the same non-church-going conditions in all the large cities and many of the villages of the nations. If the lack of Christianity in the cities makes them non-Christian, it is fair to ask how a nation composed so largely of such cities and villages could be called a “Christian nation,” as National Reform and kindred elements so stoutly aver. How can the thing itself be of one quality when its constituent parts are of another? The “Christian-nation” idea is a perfectly palpable fallacy.