Mormons Figure That It Amounts to $1,500, While Volunteers of America
Find That $5 Will Do.
The Mormons appear to spend more money to secure a single convert than
any other sect. Elder Ellsworth, of the Chicago Mormon Mission, told the
Chicago _Inter-Ocean_ that his church expended probably fifteen hundred
dollars for each convert. The statement came out in connection with the
_Inter-Ocean’s_ inquiry into the cash cost of saving souls in Chicago.
The Mormon figures were highest; the figures of the Volunteers of
America—five dollars a convert—were lowest. It is patent that the
average cost of conversion is much higher to-day than it used to be.
The Rev. George Soltau, a well-known evangelist, at work in Chicago,
said to the _Inter-Ocean’s_ representative:
Twenty-two years ago the cost of soul-saving was infinitesimal. A
picture of heaven, a few passages from the Scripture, a prayer, and a
request were sufficient—a few cents, in fact, and our task was
accomplished. To-day people have no leisure. They have no time to
listen to what preachers have to say. They read cheap literature,
which, as a rule, is antagonistic to evangelization.
Present Facts in a Commercial Way.
Religious phraseology doesn’t work. We have to present our facts in a
commercial way. We don’t relish it, but we have to move with the
times. We content ourselves with the fact that, after all, true
religion is transacting business with God and with heaven.
General education has made it much more difficult to convert the
people and to conduct a campaign of evangelization. The people are
provided with so many methods of occupying their time and thought that
there is no longer any possibility of getting individuals to come to a
church to fill in a spare hour as they used to do so readily.
This fact has been demonstrated to me again and again, and forced home
when I find myself in places where I used to hold meetings with five
or six hundred people in attendance and where now I find difficulty in
getting together an audience of twenty or thirty people.
A minister of to-day is also familiar with the fact that the Bible no
longer occupies the place of authority in the minds of the people that
it used to. And when a preacher has to prove the truth of his only
authority it is a bad tendency on the part of the people.
It is the same as if a lawyer, when he appeared in court to plead his
case, were obliged to prove the truth of the Constitution, which is
the fundamental law. On the other hand, the evangelist himself hasn’t
the slightest doubt of the authority of his message, while he knows
his hearers have.
Education and Evangelism.
Asked whether, in his opinion, the education which had proved
detrimental to evangelism was a bad thing for the people themselves, Mr.
Soltau replied:
It is both good and bad. It is good in that it develops the minds and
gives the people something to think about, and it is bad in that it
diminishes their fear and reverence for the Scriptures.
Culture has undermined faith largely. It has destroyed the foundations
on which faith used to rest; not that the foundations are one whit
injured, but the building of character has been shifted to other
foundations, namely, those of human opinion, research, discovery, and
creed untested by what was supposed to be divine revelation.
Modern thought has infected universally the people with doubt upon all
that was supposed to be established fact. And it has given nothing in
its place except speculation and private opinion, so that every man is
practically his own God to do and think as he chooses.
The production of literature—scientific, historical, and fictional—is
so enormous as to demand the spare time of every one to read it. The
pulpit and the pew, the magazine reader and the newspaper reader, have
been infected with the German rationalism and philosophy, which has
dared to assert itself as of higher authority than the Scriptures.
Authority has been destroyed, there is no court of appeal above human
reason. That being so, there is nothing to correct human reason and
bring it back to its old bearings. We have to evangelize people who
have little or no substratum of Bible knowledge, and have no
cultivated faith in any one but themselves.
The enormous wealth and rapid development of the material resources of
the country have opened up innumerable outlets for the energies of
mind and body, and the possibilities of getting rich have absorbed
every one almost, so that the dollar has first and last place in the
people’s minds. It is almost impossible to dislodge it. The altered
conditions of civilization have destroyed simplicity of living and of
thinking, hence there is no room or time for spiritual things.
The Average Churchgoer.
The low level of spirituality attained by the average church member
disgusts the man of the world, who sees no distinct advantage in
religion beyond possibly a social one. The average Christian thinks
only of his personal safety and has no concern for his neighbor. His
is mainly a selfish religion, and such poor samples are abroad of what
God is supposed to do that the successful business man, who knows how
he feels about results, discounts such enormously, and looks upon the
whole thing as beneath his notice.
Democracy has produced lawlessness enormously. It begins in the
family, where parental control is at a big discount. The grown boy
gets his way at any cost to others’ business.
He has learned to ignore law and authority from the beginning. The
laws of the community are evaded, then the laws of the State, then of
the Federal government. He believes he is a law unto himself. There is
no law of God to need his attention. There is no God to trouble about.
The book of God is never read. The day of God is utterly ignored. The
future life does not concern him, so he needs no Gospel, no mission,
no Saviour, no prayer, and the whole thing is gone.
The dollar values everything. How much happiness, how much pleasure,
how much for himself.
Mr. Soltau, however, does not think that the Bible has lost its power.
None of the modern intellectual and worldly developments satisfy the
secret cravings of the soul.