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THE PERMIT KINGDOM

N past days the peninsula known on the map as Korea was called the "Hermit Kingdom." To-day a new sobriquet is attaching itself to it, the "Permit Kingdom." And, as is the way with nicknames, it is a fair description in a capsular form.

If you are a resident of Korea and a friend drops in on you unexpectedly or otherwise, for overnight or longer, you must at once report this to the police or be heavily fined for not getting a permit.

Should there be anything unusual -that is, to the Japanese mind-in your report, say friends from different places and staying for different lengths of time, your statement may not suffice. Policemen in blue and gendarmes in khaki, both brave in gold and red braid and clanking swords and with much display of an attitude of authority, will call at your residence and before your permit is forthcoming you will be interrogated until, if it is your first experience, amazement will succeed annoyance. Whos, whats, whys, wheres, whens, and wherefores will hit you volley after volley. And to no query may you raise the objection, "incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial."

Possibly further permits, should the visit be one of some duration, will have to be secured. One can easily imagine an aspiring, officious gendarme inspecting, and probably blue-penciling, your menus for the day and plans for diversion. One can hear him say: "Very sorry to you, please excuse, but your lady guests please not wear so small skirt while in Chosen. Also, please, men guests not laugh on street. Very bad for Koreans to see these things." Fancy may have taken a bit of a canter 1 ere, but Truth on other roads would have gone farther and faster.

BY EMMA SAREPTA YULE

Truly, this permitting, while it has its amusing side, eise it could not be borne, is no joke. It is harrying. The tourist of course scarcely feels it. It is wisdom not to hamper him and his shower of shekels. But for those who dwell in the land, and particularly for those whose heritage it is, life is one permit after another, varied only by Verboten whose number is legion.

To one who has spent many, many wholly delightful months in Japan in different years, who is second to none in admiration for the past and the present of its people, who likes their pleasant courtesy and finds real recreation and unceasing interest in their country, the Japanese as they are in Korea are not only an unpleasant surprise, but well-nigh unbelievable. During a few weeks recently spent in the "Permit Kingdom" this transformation gave me a succession of rude shocks; and I felt regret, almost sorrow, as well as wonder at the change. It was like looking at the distorted shape of something that had once been pleasing in its symmetry. Arrogance with flecks of impudence instead of the old courtesy; swagger instead of dignity; an insistent see-what-Iam-doing instead of the deprecating modesty with which one has grown familiar in Japan. I kept repeating to myself, "How can they be so utterly different in this land which they are ruling from what they are in their own country?" As the many thousands sent to Korea could not be picked for this peculiarity, and as it is noticeable to a lesser degree in the business man and transients as well, I came to the conclusion that to transplant a Japanese in a region over which the Rising Sun flag is waving causes a psychological change, a character metamorphosis.

TEMPLE OF HEAVEN AND TRIPLE ARCH WITH "KING'S STONE," AS SEEN FROM
HOTEL TERRACE, SEOUL

The much-boasted-of Government hotel in Seoul is built in the grounds of the Temple of
Heaven, the most sacred place to the Koreans in the city. . . . I could not like the setting
for thinking of the thousands of hearts that this desecration is hurting"

If one is familiar with Japan through time spent there until the ways of the country have sunken in, the change is apparent as soon as one steps aboard the steamer at Shimonoseki-indeed, even in the station. The difference becomes more intensive, as it were, with each mile northward, until by the time Seoul is reached one's annoyance, resentment, or just plain irritation is most disturbing. Not from one's personal experience exactly; just from the human atmosphere.

This same atmosphere may prevent realization of anticipation in the hotei in Seoul. My anticipation was rooted in past idyllic months in the well-known hotels that have brought fame to Japan Money and effort have done their part in the Seoul hostelries. It was not the inanimate that stirred me, but the animate. It was so different from Japan. and yet the whole force were Japanese. Again, in past days in Japan the policeman had always been my dependable aid, my friend, ever kindly, courteous, and helpful. Conceive the shock and rebound when on my first day in Seoul, in reply to a question put most politely as to direction, the blue-uniformed, swordgirded creature looked at me with an imitation of superciliousness, barely twitched his thumb, then turned his back, clanked his sword, and resumed his occupation of looking like a guardian of peace and order. To be fair in judg ment, I afterward tested sundry of these officers, and always with results varying only in personal interpretation of the haughty policeman in a foreign possession of Nippon. My thankfulness that I did not want a permit grew with each test.

All praise for the material improvements made by the Japanese in Korea. But this could have been done without a metamorphosis of character, a change of aura. Improvements may have consideration for that which is esteemed by other human beings. The regard for all objects associated with sacred things in Japan impresses even the indifferent. Just spots are held sacred in making new improvements, even in that land of limited space. Yet the much-boasted-of Government hotel in Seoul is built in the grounds of the Temple of Heaven, the most sacred place to the Koreans in the city. The utilization, with true Japa nese artistic instinct, of all the bes: points of the grounds does not make it less a sacrilege. While drinking tea on the hotel terrace overlooking the ancient temple I could not like the setting for thinking of the thousands of hearts that this desecration is hurting. The hotel manager told me with vainglory of how the old grounds and gates and so on were used and preserved, though changed. In his telling he seemed unconscious of, utterly ignored, the fact that the place

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was ground sacred to the country's people, and that in his own land the hotel would have had another site. And this in face of the fact that Korea was Japan's first teacher in the religious architecture for which the land is famed. How can they so forget? As a source of Japanese culture respect would seem to be due.

Fine Government buildings are signs of progress. But was it necessary that the new building should have been so located as to wholly cut off, put in the back yard, as it were, the old North Palace and grounds? The long unused Imperial Palace in Kyoto is preserved with almost holy love. Why did not tact at least keep in its proper setting this palace and grounds for the Koreans, by whom it is revered as the Kyoto palace is by the Japanese? But no; to the Japanese in Korea the country has no past, only Japanese-made present and future. It was bad enough to spoil the grounds and surroundings of the palace with the hideous exhibition buildings and mar the entrance with a museum of unpardonable architecture and filled with "see-what-I-have done" things, without this crowning piece of arrogance. Why do they do these stupid things? One says it over and over. I watched with throat chokes groups of Koreans, their long white garments accenting the tragic sorrow depicted on their faces, walking through the arcades in the palace grounds, gazing in silence on the pillared Hall of Audience, always, it seemed, with their backs turned on the scaffolded building rearing its huge bulk near the fine gate. And my thoughts went to palaces and other buildings in Japan preserved, revered, because of their past association with the history of the country. Because I so sincerely like and admire the homeland Japanese, regret that was akin to grief was felt that in this fair land they are so different; seeking to destroy, not to pre

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serve.

Adeptly, astutely, the Japanese can on his native heath put himself in the other fellow's place. But in his annexed territory he is Teuton-like in not understanding or caring how the other fellow will think and feel. The instances showing this can be multiplied, and with no small multiplier. Only a strait separates Japan from Korea. But the transformation of Japanese character produced by crossing this strip of water, more hallowed by history than any other waters washing the shores of the Island Empire, is a thing to marvel at.

There is the new geographical nomenclature of Korea. What possible line of mental antics could have resolved on this folly? The country is far older in civilization and political geography than Japan; the name of each river, mountain, town, had its local association and meaning. Then to expect the people to purr approval when all these names by a stroke of a pen are obliterated (so decreed) and names made in Japan substituted! Can so superlative a piece of

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arrogance be paralleled in history's records? Will the Verbotens make the Koreans in their souls speak the new names? Never! Pingyang will never be Heijo, or Seoul Keijo to a Korean. Will the world bother to forget the old and learn the new? Will all the literature extant on Korea be changed? Methinks not. A decree by the Government of Korea is not going to make the world speak of the Koreans as Chosenese-at least not till more than one generation has passed. And of what use? The Korean names are perfectly good names, preferable to the ear and tongue as mere words. Then consider it as an example of efficiency. All publications for general use must give two names-one, usually the Korean, in parenthesis. A key would be necessary without the double names. In this day of paper shortage, cost of printing, and other costs what a waste! A heap of things could be done for the country's welfare with the cost of these Japanese-made geographical names. Besides, there is the indirect cost because of the psychological effect on the Koreans. The Japanese as he is in his own country would never have done it. So Korea is called the "Kingdom of Two Names" as well as the "Permit Kingdom." It is ludicrous. That which appeals to the sense of the ludicrous never commands respect though pomp and circumstance surround it.

On a par with the doubling of the geographical names is the attempt to give the country bodily, as it were, the Japanese language. Is there reason in trying to abolish a national mother tongue, a language, not a dialect, spoken from one end of the land to the other; a language in which a classic literature is written? More than that, the language that was the source of Japanese language and the first fount of culture from

which Japan drank in the early periods of her evolution. How preposterous, then, just because in the course of human events the flag of Japan floats over the peninsula, to make or try to make the language of that country not only the Court vehicle of speech but the speech of the hearth and mart; to decree that it shall be the language in which all instruction is to be imparted in the schools! Surely the one who perpetrated this plan must have imbibed deeply but not discriminatingly from the Nietzschean stein.

Although they are excluded from school history work to-day, Korea has its own perfectly good heroes, both legendary and historical, but when Arbor Day was instituted-and an admirable thing it is the day fixed upon and proclaimed is April 3, the assumed birthday of Jimmu Tenno, Japan's legendary first Emperor. Now why was this fine opportunity to do the obvious passed by? It was not even polite, to say nothing of being tactless.

It would appear to be something of a job to step into a land which has a civilization, a past rich in culture, though a little on the down hill, a bit out at the elbows, and hoist your banner and say: "Hear, ye people! You have no language, no literature, no heroes, no history-in fact, no past. Your existence begins now. Your country, capital, towns, mountains, rivers, have no names except the names given by us. We'll let you keep your own cognomens for the present; later we'll probably rename the eighteen million of you. You will take notice that from this time on you are not to be yourselves, you are to be US. So get busy." In the United States vernacular, some job this! The Japanese in his normal state of mind would have bowed and said, "Please excuse."

IS DEMOCRACY A FAILURE?

T is not often the lot of a statesman

so-called radical experimentation of Aus

Ito produce two monumental books tralla and New Zealand. He does not

ship. Viscount Bryce, better known to Americans as James Bryce, formerly British Ambassador to the United States, has probably performed this unique feat. I say probably because no man living to-day can be absolutely sure what posterity a century or two hence will regard as permanent and monumental contributions to the history of government. But for nearly a hundred years de Tocqueville's study of American democracy has been regarded as a classic and Lord Bryce's "American Commonwealth," published more than thirty years ago, has taken a place beside it. Now at eighty years of age, Lord Bryce, out of his ripe knowledge and experience, gives the world the facts and conclusions of his lifelong study of democratic governments.' These conclusions may well give the ardent believer in popular sovereignty pause, although they do not necessarily bring disillusionment or even disheartenment.

The first thing that strikes the reader of these two scholarly volumes is their freedom from cant and prejudice. They are written by a man who believes in party government and in democratic institutions, and who has put his beliefs into practice in a long and honorable career. Yet he writes not as an advocate arguing a case. His purpose-to quote his own words-is that of "describing the phenomena as they appear in their daily working to an observer who is living in the midst of them and watching them, as one standing in a great factory sees the play and hears the clang of the machinery all around him. . . . The book is not meant to propound theories. Novelties are not possible in a subject the literature of which began with Plato and Aristotle and has been enriched by thousands of pens since their day. What I desire is, not to impress upon my readers views of my own but to supply them with facts and (so far as I can) with explanations of facts on which they can reflect and from which they can draw their own conclusions."

Lord Bryce has remarkably succeeded in attaining his object. It may perhaps be permitted to an American democrat, who knows the reactionary tendencies of intellectual tradition and vested interests in his own country, to say that Lord Bryce's catholicity, human sympathy, tolerance of novelty, and absolute frankness are especially refreshing when it is remembered that he comes by training and experience from the intellectual and governmental aristocracy of Great Britain. But the words "initiative" and "referendum" do not terrify him, and he sees much to admire in the

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is not even positive that it is an immortal form of government. He evidently regards government not as an end in

(C) Underwood

VISCOUNT BRYCE

As he appeared on his arrival in the United States a few days ago to lecture at the School of International Relations at Williams College, Massachusetts

itself but as a machine with which to obtain a certain end, and he judges a machine, as all sensible men in their calmer moments must, by its product. As an example of his fairness in stating facts the reader might well turn at once to his five chapters on New Zealand, and as an example of the fine spirituality of his conclusions, if I may use the expres

sion, to his chapter (LXXIII) on "Results Democratic Government Has Given."

With all its defects, with all its failures, with all its inefficiency, and-what is perhaps most discouraging of allwith all its mediocrity, democracy is still the hope of the world. For "if we look back to the world of the sixteenth century comfort can be found in seeing how many sources of misery have been reduced under the rule of the people and the recognition of the rights of all. I it has not brought all the blessings tha were expected, it has in some countries destroyed, in others materially dimin ished many of the cruelties and terrors. injustices and oppressions, that hau darkened the souls of men for many generations."

The plan of the book, although comprehensive, is simple. Lord Bryce considers in the opening chapters some of the features, qualities, and relationships of democratic government in general. He then takes six modern democraciesFrance, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealandand goes into their structure and accomplishments in detail. Finally, he concludes with a series of chapters examining and criticising democratic institutions in the light of the facts he has related, stating his observations on certain general democratic phenomena, and giving his estimates of the social, intellectual, and moral influences of democracy.

More pages-one hundred and sixtyfive, to be exact-are given to the study of the United States than any other single subject in the book. Lord Bryce does not regard our government as incomparably the best in the world nor does he fail to record some serious dangers, or rather diseases, that threaten its body politic. Its history, he thinks. "furnishes an instructive example of the perpetual conflict between the forces of Idealism and Selfishness." Among the diseases from which the American democracy is suffering he names the low tone of many State legislatures; the inefficiency of governmental administration due to the spoils system; the mediocrity of elected judges; the delays and uncertainties of the administration of criminal justice; the scandals of city government; the power of wealth; the oligarchic and undemocratic character of party organizations; and the neglect by the best trained and most gifted citizens of their political duties, who leave the arduous and sometimes obnoxious work of political management and administration to professional politicians of the second rank. These dangers are easily recognizable by any American familiar with the political tendencies of the times in the United States. Fortunately, an increasing number of American citizens are beginning to realize that democratic government does not mean that the citizen must vote for every office-holder from hog-reeve-a

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post once held, it is said, by Ralph Waldo Emerson-to President. We appreciate more and more that the Federal Government is more honest and efficient than the State and municipal governments because in the Federal Government the voter exercises his choice on practically only three or four men-his Congressman, his Senator, his President, and possibly his Vice-President-holding them responsible for the wisdom of legislation and the efficiency of administration. Whereas in the State and the city the voter has such an enormous list of candidates that he cannot exercise any kind of intelligent choice finally, in despair, practically turns his ballot over to the party boss.

and

To those who are sometimes disheartened by the magnitude of the social, economic, and political problems of the United States the conclusion of Lord Bryce's survey of those problems will be cheering: "No Englishman who remembers American politics as they were half a century ago, and who, having lived in the United States, has formed an affection as well as an admiration for its people-what Englishman who lives there can do otherwise?-will fail to rejoice at the many signs that the sense of public duty has grown stronger, that the standards of public life are steadily rising, that democracy is more and more showing itself a force making for ordered progress true to the principles of Liberty and Equality from which it sprang."

I think it not inappropriate, because of the hysterical attitude which the Great War has developed in some of our Government officials and State legislatures towards free thought and free speech, to quote here what Lord Bryce has to say about liberty in a democracy:

Liberty may not have achieved all that was expected, yet it remains true that nothing is more vital to national progress than the spontaneous development of individual character, and that free play of intellect which is independent of current prejudice, examines everything by the light of reason and history, and fearlessly defends unpopular opinions. Independence of thought was formerly threatened by monarchs who feared the disaffection of their subjects. May it not again be threatened by other forms of intolerance, possible even in a popular government?

Room should be found in every country for men who, like the prophets in ancient Israel, have along with their wrath at the evils of their own time inspiring visions of a better future and the right to speak their minds. That love of freedom which will bear with opposition because it has faith in the victory of truth is none too common. Many of those who have the word on their lips are despots at heart. Those men in whom that love seemed to glow with the hottest flame may have had an excessive faith in its power for good, but if this be an infirmity, it is an infirmity of noble minds, which democracies ought to honor.

Not less than any other form of government does democracy need to

cherish individual liberty. It is, like oxygen in the air, a life-giving spirit. Political liberty will have seen one of its fairest fruits wither on the bough if that spirit should decline.

Lord Bryce's book is not only a great treatise on modern government, but it is. a moral tonic. One of the penalties that men have to pay for living in a democracy is that they are surrounded by a constant and exhausting din of political controversy. Here is a great democrat who can write frankly and definitely about political matters involving strong feelings and prejudices without being controversial or disputatious. In this respect Lord Bryce is like another great Anglo-Saxon administrator, ambassador, and student of government-Benjamin Franklin. In his autobiography Benjamin Franklin says: “There was another bookish lad in town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is

apt to become a very bad habit, making people extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps, enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough."

Lord Bryce is a lawyer, a university man, and was a student at one time at Glasgow University, which is tolerably near Edinburgh; but he is certainly not disputatious. He is a shining example of the persuasive influence of a man who combines expert knowledge, intellectual honesty, and definite opinions with fair dealing, courtesy, and a willingness to see and understand his opponent's point of view even when he feels bound to disagree with and, if necessary, to oppose it. LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT.

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Brothers, New York City. $2. The author of this volume, who last winter played in "Miss Lulu Bett" in New York City, combines in her book the vivid style one might expect from an actress, together with the acuteness which we have observed in her previously published works. The present volume will be appreciated by any one who has ever tried to "housekeep" in London. Its description of English domestic life and of English social conventions is certainly intimate and to the point. It is, however, tiresome at times in its excess of detail.

BELGIUM: OLD AND NEW. By George Wharton Edwards. Illustrated. The Penn Publishing Company, Philadelphia. $10. Mr. Edwards has done for Belgium what he did for Holland a year ago. Like the illustrations in Mr. Edwards's "Holland of To-Day," those in the present volume are often exquisite; they are always apt and attractive. His text is as excellent as his illustrations. CHINA, JAPAN, AND KOREA. By J. O. P. Bland. Illustrated. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $4.50.

Mr. Bland is an authority on Far Eastern affairs. The special reason for publishing this volume is to note the extraordinary changes which have occurred during the past decade. Mr. Bland is well qualified to observe these changes in their proper perspective, for he spent over thirty years of his life in China as Secretary to the late Sir Robert Hart, Inspector-General of the Chinese Customs. The volume is a report on the present, and not a prophecy as to the future.

MACEDONIA. By A. Goff and Hugh A.
Fawcett, M.R.C.S., D.P.H. Illustrated. The
John Lane Company, New York. $6.
The chief value of this volume lies in

its vivid picture of the Macedonian people, still living, as they do, under conditions primitive to a degree unknown elsewhere in Europe. Their household utensils and their agricultural implements are practically the same as they were thousands of years ago. The impression made by Mr. Goff's text is emphasized by Dr. Fawcett's illustrations.

MISCELLANEOUS

HISTORY OF THE ART OF WRITING (A). By William A. Mason. The Macmillan Company, New York. $6.50.

An interesting and well-illustrated study of the art of writing from primitive picture-writing, the Egyptian and Hittite hieroglyphic systems, and Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiforms down to the invention of the printing-press and the subsequent development of type faces and penmanship.

STATES OF SOUTH AMERICA (THE). By Charles Domville-Fife. Illustrated. The Macmillan Company, New York. $5. STRAIGHT BUSINESS IN SOUTH AMERICA. By James H. Collins. D. Appleton & Co., New York. $2.50.

Here are two books of value to all commercial people interested in South America. Both describe the economic conditions, the foreign trade, the railways and industries, of the South American countries. In Mr. Domville-Fife's volume we have a special treatment of the laws relating to the granting of Government concessions. In his more

readable and vivacious volume Mr. Col

lins does not discuss all of the South American countries; he confines himself to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay, with a chapter on the Panama Canal for good measure. In both volumes practical men may gain valuable hints concerning investments, advertising, business possibilities, and, above all, the necessity of a knowledge of the Spanish and Portuguese languages.

"IS THE CHURCH LOSING

I

THE PEOPLE?"

I

LIVE in a prosperous community of two thousand. There is no doubt that the majority of the residents prefer a quiet day at home or a trip in the automobile to spending an hour in church. The question of religious dut, seems to have departed. They go where they can find the most pleasu'.e. But I should hesitate to say tha' these same people are not religious and, on the whole, God-fearing.

For the past year I have been an usher at the University of Chicago Sunday chapel in Manel Hall. It has been interesting to notice the quantity and quality of the ctendance. Students are in the minority. The average age I should estimate at from forty to fifty. Judging from appearances, there are people from many stations of life. I have shered people in frock coats into seats adjacent to those occupied by people who could barely speak English plainly enough to tell me where they preferred to sit. There are professors and university employees. The seating capacity is slightly over one thousand, and there are rarely fewer than seven hundred seats filled. Often we have capacity houses, and on several occasions have turned away from two to five hundred persons.

I have come to the conclusion that if the Church gives the people what they want no lack of congregation will confront the pastor. On the other hand, if the sermon is beyond the grasp of the average church-goer, and especially if it is a theoretical theological treatise, he is going to stay at home and get his material for thought from the Sunday paper. What the bulk of the congregation wants, after all, is "food for thought." And they don't want to hear what the Rev. B thinks Paul meant in the second paragraph of his third letter to the Corinthians. The orthodox members will absorb this as well as anything else. They attend through a sense of duty.

In my little town the minister of my church is the graduate of an excellent Eastern university. He is brilliant, a good thinker, but a man that apparently does too much thinking. He isn't a man that one would readily follow in any undertaking. Physically he is insignificant, and his personality does not overcome the deficiency. I never go to church at home. It "gets on my nerves." This man is the one minister of the town who is well educated. The others are fair enough men, but they are in every sense "small town" ministers.

Now at Mandel Hall we have such men as Bishop William Fraser McDowell, Dr. Henry van Dyke, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Dr. Lynn Harold Hough, and others of that class. They know how to speak to the people. The situation is unavoidable. The

Q

UITE unintentionally Dr. Andrew Ten Eyck and Dr. Howard A. Bridgman engaged in a debate in the pages of The Outlook. Under the question "Is the Church Losing the People?" we placed their two articles in the issue of July 13. Neither of the two writers knew of the existence of the other's article until it appeared. Dr. Ten Eyck described conditions in a small town which indicated that people-especially young people are not for the most part going to church. Dr. Bridgman described conditions in five churches in the city of Boston, which indicated that in those cases, at least, people are going to church in crowds.

It was by these articles that the letters on this page were called forth. On another page there is editorial reference to these letters.-THE EDITORS.

country church will always have to be satisfied with ministers who are not the best, whether their deficiency be in education, in personality, or both. And the city will glean from the vast field of eligibles those men who possess ability, who have proved though years of service that they have the power to draw the people to them and maintain their interest in religion. STUDENT.

W

II

ITH five thousand Protestant pulpits now vacant and the prospect of double that number empty a year hence, we have entered a veritable theological crisis. What we are witnessing is an American students' strike against the Church. It is the more portentous because so wholly spontaneous. Why have these students struck? The common explanations-that there is better pay elsewhere, that the preacher's social standing has sagged, that he is muzzled -do not explain.

They have struck because the theological training of students is out of date. Good colleges and universities in troduce young men to modern ideas and the modern world; theological institutions then invite them to take on the harness of antiquity, which they cannot do without self-stultification. They also see the present unhappy plight of the pulpit, where well-meaning men are floundering ineffectually, unable to grapple with the problems of a revolutionized modern world because they were equipped with antiquity as their tool for improving the present.

It is a great mistake to see tragedy or pathos in this desertion of the pulpit, for rather is the event a splendid outburst of spiritual honesty, indicating the only way of modernizing the Church. With only a thin stream of applicants for the pulpit, the churches must either close, or accept inferior men who will empty the pews, or transform themselves into organs of modern life in

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Is the Church losing people? I doubt

Is it that is, compared with the num

bers that used to attend. We hear much of the sacrifice of older people about attending church-walking miles, etc.-but we must remember that few of them did this, just as few of them are now as faithful as their pastors desire them to be. The writer believes that the figures will show a very much greater proportion of the people belonging to the Church now than one hundred years ago. He saw the statement somewhere a short while ago that one person in seventy-five were Baptists in the United States then, and that now one in about every fourteen. This is quite a gain for Baptists. It is likely that the other churches would show a similar gain.

Is the Church serving the people as it should? No. Is it the medium it should be of creating a spiritual atmosphere and building Christian patriotism? No. Why? Because most of the pas tors think much more of a member's loyalty to the organization than of anything else. All of the great church leaders seem to the writer to be seeking to build up a great denominational organization. One has to put this claim first to become affiliated with the conferences, synods, etc. In other words, only those laymen who are of narrow sectarian views and willing to put up money and finance sectarian projects are allowed in the inner circles.

The people as a whole care very little for this form of church service. Most of them want spiritual uplift and encouragement to meet their daily problems. It matters little to the average man whether one follows one creed or another-what matters is a Christianity that serves him and helps him to meet his problems and causes him to commune with the higher self.

The Church is combing the world for members, but in itself it has done little to solve the problem of crime, of pov erty, of war, of alcohol, of famine, of disease, of hygiene, and many other problems that are shackling the human race. In fact, it has openly fought some of them. What was done along this line had to be done by church members out of the Church organization.

When its leaders think less of building denominational fences and more of pulling the fangs of ignorance, superstition, self-greed, and incompetence from the body politic, then the Church will come into its own. ATTORNEY.

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