Mr. Beecher arose in his pulpit Sunday after Sunday for forty
years with the invariable fortune of looking at a crowded
congregation, tho the most eloquent political orator in the
country can not draw the same people to hear him five times in
succession. A country town of 3,000 people will support from
five to ten churches when it will hardly pay the rent of an
amusement hall. For centuries, against intellectual doubt and
the weakness of the flesh, the Christian religion has more than
held its own in Europe and America, and while the theater could
attract only by a continually changing appeal to curiosity, the
church has retained its power with slight change and with only
enough flexibility to adjust its forms of government to the
character of different people.--Kansas City _Times_.
(445)
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 2--Proportion of the population reported as
Protestant, Roman Catholic, and “all other” church-members, and
proportion not reported as church-members, for continental United
States: 1890 and 1906.]