It is very remarkable how the secular papers are beginning to rebuke the church for its lamentable departure from the simplicity that is in Christ. The Providence Telegram has never been noted for its pious utterances or friendship for Christianity; but it has recently published an editorial worthy of the serious consideration of all leaders in church work and methods:— “Spiritual declension, the absence of aggressive work, the diminution of accessions to the churches, and the loss of a ‘grip’ upon the consciences and presence of the masses of men, have kept pace with secularization of the pulpit, the introduction of purely national questions in sermons, the multiplication of societies, the increase of committees, the enlargement of conventions, the frequency of religious junketings, and the invention of many sorts of ecclesiastical devices and machinery. Is it not true that as these things have forged to the front, spirituality has been relegated to the rear; and as these things have gone up, the church’s spiritual life has diminished? Is it not proper now for the Protestant portion of Christendom to consider the question of returning to its old methods, its old message, and its old-time simplicity? To an interested observer it seems that many Protestant churches have been degraded to the level of a ‘man of all work.’ Thoughtful and conscientious ministers are often burdened with the Sundays set apart for temperance, the hospital, for municipal reform, for Sunday observance, and for a dozen other ‘reforms,’ so that little time is left to preach the Gospel committed to them when they took holy orders. So much money has to be raised for these secondary agencies that the primary work ordained by the Founder of Christianity, as interpreted by the apostles and rigidly adhered to by the devout and pious of all ages, has to go to the wall. Hence the empty treasuries of mission societies and the curtailing of all the aggressive work in missions.”—Watchword and Truth.