Article July 25, 1903 Issue

Religious Items

with contributions from Van Dyke

Rev. George C. Lorimer says in The watch man in an article on "Church Attendance:"

"This problem means more than how to bring people to church on Sunday. When they are there, what then? When Easter comes the sanctuaries are crowded, and it is conceivable that attractions might be devised which would induce thousands to fill the now poorly attended services. But when they have been brought together in those vast numbers, what then? Have the masses been 'reached' by this simple process? No; the problem we are considering comprehends more than the mere enlargement of congregations, and contemplates the ennobling of character, the transformation of the soul, the purification of conscience, the exaltation of motives, the regeneration of life.

"Not for conventional observance of a duty, not for diversion, not for social recognition, not for smug sanctimonious salf-ex-ultation, ought the millions to seek the house of God, but for the joy of experiencing the enthusiasm of righteousness and the inspiration to high endeavor that comes from a deep sense of God's Fatherhood or human brotherhood. And were we who officiate so endowed with spiritual genius that we could make what we call 'divine service,' and which is now too often lacking in warmth, intellectual force, and spiritual power, a real and heavenly agency for getting at the better nature of man and imparting to him the joys that rise from the wells of religious feeling, we should never lack for congregations, would never need to be urged to return again.

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