A WICKED CITY by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 6, 1887

A WICKED CITY.

By Editor

Not long since a San Francisco minister preached a sermon in which he expressed the belief that San Francisco is the wickedest city in the United States. This is indignantly denied by the Post of that city, which, however, makes the following candid admissions:

"The various Protestant denominations have among them sixty-three churches, and the average Sunday attendance is a little more than 17,000. And so difficult is it to induce people to enter these temples that evening service in some of them has been given up. The Catholics make a better showing. They have nineteen churches and ten chapels, and the attendance is given at between 30,000 and 35,000. In round numbers, the church attendance may be placed at 50,000. The population of the city is certainly not below 300,000, so it is evident that only one-sixth of the inhabitants listen to the gospel on the Sabbath [Sunday]."

Whether or not San Francisco is the wickedest city in this country, we cannot tell; but even according to the Post's showing, its condition is certainly deplorable. Only one-sixth of its inhabitants attend church at all, and only about one-third of that one-sixth are Protestants! Believers in a temporal millennium can, we are sure, find but little in San Francisco to strengthen their faith in the speedy conversion of the world.