Article July 9, 1904 Issue

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with contributions from Henry C. Potter, Walter Rauschenbusch

It may be said at the outset that too many churches are born religiously tired. Their members believe nothing can be done to keep the young men from saloons and to stimulate the good morals of the town, and they do not even try. They ring their church bell, they warm the meeting-house, they open the doors, they "hire a minister." they announce the services—and "let it go at that." In these days of abundant reading matter, much of it interesting although by no means elevating, in these days when the business "hustler" is idealized, the churches cannot depend upon the mere fact that they exist and go through the motions of worship and of proclaming the truth, in order to exert wide-reaching spiritual power. They must do something as well as be something and believe something. —The Standard.

A great deal of our modern life is full of the illusion—I will not characterize it by a stronger or more contemptuous term—the illusion that we can make humanity great and pure and honest and loving by a vision of great ideals. No; the palce for the vision of great ideals comes when the mental and spiritual eye has been opened by nature and discipline, to recognize the great spiritual ideals and to distinguish them from ideals that are false, the ignis fatuus of false teachers and false promises. Believe me that is one of the sublimest offices of the elder Testament to which the apostle bids us turn back.

Bishop Henry C. Potter.
The Homiletic Review.

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