CALL OF THE CHURCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20762, 3 January 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

CALL OF THE CHURCH.

CAMPAIGN IN LONDON. v YOUTH DEAF TO APPEAL. SMALL CONGREGATIONS. A great campaign to bring the young men and women of London back to the churches has just been launched—and youth has not yet heard the trumpet call. Eleven centres of the city have been mapped out for attack during the churches' five months' campaign, and in each ono of these there will be revival meetings nightly. A special correspondent of the Daily Express made a lightning survey of the congregation at the morning services in London churches on November 16.

St. James', Piccadilly, one of the city's most beautiful churches, on the fringe of Piccadilly Circus, had fewer than 100 worshippers. Yet it was built by Wren for 2000! Tho youngest person in the church was a man obviously more than fifty years old. _ ( It was the same in St. George's, Hanover Square —the scene of many splendid weddings. The galleries of this fashionable church were empty. It's " young people's" congregation totalled —three. These might have been chauffeurs or servants from houses in tho surrounding streets and squares. St. Mark's, North Audley Street—one of Mayfair's most celebrated churches had a congregation mostly composed of elderly people. Women predominated.

Youth was missing. Dr. Orchard's famous church, King's Weigh_ House, close by, had a mixed congregation of middleaged and elderly people. There were fewer than half-a-dozen young men at the service.

A communion service at another Mayfair church was attended by six middleaged men, twenty women and one youth! The most crowded church in Mayfair was Farm Street. Yet Father Woodlock, the eminent Jesuit, seemed disappointed. He was asked about London's young people of to-day. 'He boldly asserted that young people of all classes have grown up under the impression that Christianity has been exploded as a fallacy. " It is unfortunately a fact," declared Father Woodlock, " that the ordinary public schoolboy leaves his university a very charming pagan !" Then he went on to say that it would be no exaggeration to assert that i) 0 per cent, never enter the church for purposes of personal (ievotion !"