THE QUIET HOUR

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 76, 3 August 1929, Page 3

THE QUIET HOUR

*? iijW%Y Reading.

</;t chuech attendance. THE Preaching in St. John's Presbyterian Church, "Wellington, the Rev., J. R. Blanchard referred to the contemporary drift frdm church atterftfaritie. He said that his remarks were'confined solely to the Presby-,. terralh. Ohurch; for, of. that Chtirch only did iSe hhve knowledge intimate enough to speak with any aiithorityl For some 'time past he had been engaged in making a careful estimate of church attendance based on figures supplied him by the Government Statistician, and on further figures gathered from official Chifrch records. As a 'matter of. facVthere were 'More Presbyterians gom'g "to churtih to-day than ever i befbre—tnbusan'ds moire than twenty years ago. Two things conspired to lead people to overlook "that fact. 1, Twenty years ago there were 840 places of worship, while to-day there! were over 1400. Thus church, going was spread over a larger numM ber of places, hone b'f which could therefore show the same full apm pea'rMcV fes in fbrmer years. |, a t ehurCh was more obvious to-day, the mddern facilities of transport bringing ' 'it' out into the open more readily than had been the case in the past. There was thus less visibility in chftrflft attendance to-day, and more :i visibility in non-attendance. That • w^'a : factor which led many people «i severer Jttdgmeht Ht the;, ■ sifla'iibn tha'n fee actual : facts warti ranted." *''" ; ! 'j ~y&E 'ttde ft wsmkG. Xt'the sahfe time, while sands,/more Presbyterians we're attending church 'to-day 'tti&h twenty; vyears ago, there were 'thousands . more Presbyterians in the population. Had the rate of church at-, tendance Which obtained in 1906, jto# example, been maintained there; wbittd have been several thousands, moife- attending church than there - were" 'td Vi dayi i&'6 while 'church; attendance 'bid UnddubfeTlly increas-: ed ntfiiferieailV. it had not iricreks-" ed Tn'prdpVrfioh to 'the popiMti6n. ] Those who claimed that there was' a drift in this connection we're ■ therefore right. It would appear that this drift set in about twenty years ago, and reached its maxinrtfni Admentuhi during the years 1916^1921.-From the year 1921 there i hStd been iigria of a change setting in: - ' f the '"seven Sirica then' i;h'e drift 'haid 'hot been so strong numerically as 'during the previous seven. The drift had hot ' ceased; but it had slackened, indicating that the Church was gaining some degree of control over it, and that the tide was turning. The Church rightly conceived her ortant task to be that of \4otssk'4 people into the acceptance of r t"ne Ichf fstisfn life, and into a pub. ' lie* witness thereto the Sadrahie'rit of "Holy Communion. In that connection there were some very s/ig-. ni'fleaht facts.. Twenty years ago one out of every 6.5 of the Pres- . byterian "population was a communicant of the Church. Seven years ago that rStio had fallen to one in " eivery seven, which represented a numerical fSrfft of approximately 3800. "To-day the ratio of Presbyterian communicants to their population was one in 6.3 6, which was - •Vffl J tua'ily the ratio of twenty years ago. That was an indication that the Church was recovering from the drift. from communion, as distinct from attendance. THE WAR* ■A further significant fact had to' be noted in connection with the * number who were coming forward to Holy Communion for the first time, thereby openly professing their acceptance of Christ. It was estimated that twenty years ago the: Church was winning one such new. communicant for every nine noncommunicants who attended her, services; to-day she was winning ] one 'for every six. "While the ~ Church was not getting people to come to her services at the same rate as twenty years ago, she was winning people for Christ from, among those who did at a much greater rate. In what was admittedly "the essential work of the Church there had been, therefore, no drift;, there had definite progress. y crae 1 factor that had to be taken Into account in dealing with such a problem was ( the fact that the war h'ad made terrific inroads on the man-power of every congregation (B| JfiSJ Cff-urcff. Tti had been stat(o SPII taorci J-bung men enlisted,

from the Presbyterian Chiirch than 'aiiy singlfe Church. There not a 'feiole 'class hut nail suffered severe lois; in. some places no feible blasis 'had oeen lWt. A larger huihber eff these ineh than it had been possible to 'calchiiate never returned. That loss to the Church -Was greater than the mere numbers would represent. It had meant not billy the loss df, so many individuals, 'but'also the loss of those whom they wduld have 'in the natural course of events won into fellowship of their Church;. That could fairly be ■claime'a as a weighty factor in &hy attempt to size iip the present situa'tioh. i It had 'to be understood that drifting from the ■Church was ho hew thing. 'ln r th e latter half of the sixteenth century men coinplained that ''the churches in most places are 'eiHlity, whereas 'the theatres of. the players are as full as they can throng." In the early part of the eighteenth century, tie opinion of oiie e'mirient authority ■was commonly endorsed: "I have lived to see that final crisis, when religion hath lost its hold on the minds of the people." Yet both these period s came to a close, Tne one in the rise of Puritanism, and the other in the outbreak of the Evangelical Revival. Religion revived and the Church was restored. Those facts of history forbade any despair in the present situation. They equally forbade living in the fool's paradise of a complacent unconcern.