A SAD CONDITION AND GREAT NEED.
THE condition, and we say it sadly, is the backslidden, low, spiritual condition of the professed Protestant churches. This is what the Christian Advocate, the leading organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has to say as to conditions in that great body, in its issue of February 15:— "That the Methodist Episcopal Church, with nearly three millions of communicants and a vast army of Sunday-school scholars, should add less than 7,000 to its membership in 1899, is startling. That in the same period it should show a decline of 28,595 in those avowed and accepted candidates known as probationers, is ominous. Such a situation has not been frequent in our history, and when it has occurred the usual result has been to awaken the church to its need of divine assistance and concentrated work. In some such instances the year of drought has been succeeded by several years of extensive harvests. . . . "No reverent person can charge the decline to God, the Father Almighty, to Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, or to the Holy Ghost, in whom the church ceaselessly declares its belief. It must, therefore, lie at the doors of every church. The only remedy is concentration upon the conviction and conversion of those whom the churches can reach through the preaching of the Word, meetings for prayer, praise, and testimony, the Sabbath-school, and direct and intense personal effort. "While conferences are steadily declining, population in the same territory is increasing. In these conferences districts are weakening, and in these districts societies are becoming lifeless. This inevitably leads back to pastors and people. In the most fruitless churches there may be some who are doing all that man can do to build up the waste places, but the majority are indifferent; hence the decay." Rev. W. S. Rainsford, D.D., Protestant Episcopal, of New York City, in a recent address in Philadelphia, said:— "The church is not fitting herself to new conditions. The people don't want her, because away down in her soul she don't want them. Our clergy are narrow and ignorant. If we are going to be able ministers of the New Testament we have got to know our country for one thing. Wherever I go I see churches that are failures. You never see printed records of the falling, but you hear of the sudden collapse. What causes these failures?—Because the churches do not hold the fact that new times bring new duties. You don't suppose the church is absolutely right to-day. It is that spirit of life which means growth that the church wants. Church failures result not from lack of zeal or lack of earnestness, but because again and again the thing that is good in one age is not good in the next decade. New occasions have not taught the church new duties. Growth or death, choose which you will have. The living God's organization has to be the most vitally instinct with mind of any organization in the world. But it is not." These testimonies might be greatly multiplied; but no careful spiritual observer of church life needs such evidence to convince him that
"The church has fallen, the beautiful church,
And her shame is her boast and pride." What is her need?—Regeneration in Jesus Christ. Says the Springfield Republican of March 9:— "Nearly every religious denomination in Christendom is confessing its need of a revival in interest. The Greek Church of Russia and Asia Minor must be excepted from the start; there no pulse stirs; there everything has fallen into the stagnation of a formal religion, under the crushing influence of despotic States." "There is a great disturbance among the managers of religion because they feel that in some way or other they are losing their hold upon the people. If they know why, they are very loath to confess it. We are told by Roman Catholics that the pilgrimages to Rome in this jubilee year proclaimed by the pope to round out the nineteenth century are falling far short of the numbers expected. This is the very season when the visitors should be most numerous; for now Rome is most wholesome. If the great Roman Church can not draw devotional throngs to St. Peter's and the Vatican, what Christian church can hope to hold on to its confessors? We hear of the great and astounding apathy of the French Catholics." A committee of Methodist Episcopal bishops, C. H. Fowler, F. X. Ninde, and I. W. Joyce, says:— "To-day our Methodism confronts a serious situation. Our statistics for the last year show a decrease in the number of our members. The lost ground is paved with the dead. We are surrounded by powerful enemies. The attack is on every side. It is high time for every Methodist to take himself or herself to prayer and to call mightily on God for help." Mr. Sheldon is moved to call for a revival in the paper he controls this week, as the only remedy for the condition of things in the religious world. But, in the light of how the Word of God is regarded by many, very many leading divines, what hope is there of Gospel regeneration? The truth must come, if at all, through the Word. Begotten through the Word is the Bible mode; but men have lost faith in the Word. Ministers do not believe it. It is cut and carved and colored till it is unrecognizable. And yet God's Word is the same to-day. Jesus Christ is the same. The re-creative power of the Spirit through the Word is the same. God has a living, growing progress in revelation in His Word, even the great threefold message of Rev. 14:6-14, which is fitted for the needs of these times. And, praise God, some will heed it, and stand triumphant on the crystal sea. Others will go down, and so fulfil many prophecies of God's Word, such as Rev. 18:1-4; 2 Tim. 3:1-5, and others. Reader, in which class will you stand?