PHILISTINISM IN THE CHURCHES.
ON this topic the Christian Work has the following truthful utterance:— “Surely the want of the time is less of mammon, more of righteousness; if not less of Sunday-school, at least more of religious instruction in the home; less denominational competition, more denominational cooperation; not less munificence in endowing great universities, but more proportionable giving according to one's means. Mr. Abram S. Hewitt said in this city not long ago that only one rich man in New York City gave at all proportionably according to his means; and this man, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was laid at rest in his family tomb a few days ago. Think of the enormous wealth, the vast incomes ‘often acquired but never earned,’ and then ponder upon the smallness of the giving in proportion to them. “Here we rest. Let the reader ponder on these conditions which so vitally affect the religious life to-day; let him ask himself to what extent he is responsible for them. And then he may form some conception of the measure of his own duty—of his own responsibility for much of the Laodicean character of the ornate, self-satisfied Philistine Christianity which to-day we meet with in so many churches.”