UNBELIEF AND INDIFFERENCE.
The Rev. Brooke Herford, of Boston, stated recently, that in his opinion about half the people in this country do not attend any church. He said: "There are indeed some careful observers who estimate the number of non-church-goers at a much larger number. In reply to all such statements the churches would probably say that all estimates of this kind are misleading, and that there is a tendency in many quarters to make out as bad a case for religion as possible. Doubtless that is so, but nevertheless it is a fact patent to all that a large percentage of the adults in every community are to all intents and purposes outside of the pale of Christianity. Either because of unbelief or indifference they live and die without accepting for themselves the teachings of the church. That such large numbers of people, many of them entirely respectable and moral in their lives, should reject Christianity in a professedly Christian land, ought to be an anomalous circumstance. It is for the churches to say why it is not."