Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1902 — POOR YEAR FOR CHURCHES. [ARTICLE]

POOR YEAR FOR CHURCHES.

Religion Has Not Prospered Financial* . ly Like Other Interests. With possibly one exception, the year 1901 has not witnessed great financial strides within the churches. With money ranking by the billions, and given away by its makers by the millions, religion hat) suffered acutely when compared either with some previous years-or with interests without the churches. The Baptists have spent the year discussing administration of their benevolences, and at the end of It have arrived at no satisfactory conclusion. All of the three larger Baptist benevolent societies have suffered in financial incomes. Almost the same history belongs to Congregationalists, only that no exceptions can be Inade of educational work among them. Episcopalians, of whom many expect much, have still a depleted missionary fund, with SBO,OOO wanted, and no marked advance anywhere. Lutherans, in their many boards, have had to draw in rather than extend. Methodists, who form the possible exception to the rather dismal reign of 1901, end the year with $15,000,000 raised in their special fund, but their missiontry society is crying out that it is hit in its contributions. Presbyterians, both North and South, have special f.und schemes, but neither of them has succeeded sufficiently well to give them courage to proclaim their 'amounts. Boman Catholics have kept up their rate of church building, of school building, and the rest, and have made striking progress in their task of creating Washington into the great center of Roman Catholic education in the world, Rome scarcely excepted. • ...'. The feature of 1901, financially, is the tremendous progress made by causes outside the churches. Millions of dollars have gone into secular charities—probably more than during any year the world ever before lived through. Exclusive of his gifts abroad Mr, Carnegie has so far given $14,500,000 in round figures. Mrs. Stanford’s gifts reach $30,000,000, Mr. Rockefeller gave during the year $2,775,000, Pierpont Morgan $1,850,000. Mr. Rockefeller has just made a conditional offer of $300,000 to the Baptists of New York City, but aside from that he has hardly listened to religious gift appeals at all. Mr. Carnegie declines to listen to the entreaties of even the liberal religious body to which he belongs, and Mr. Morgan is known to be away behind in benevolences to objects which have looked to him for many years. In 1892 the benevolent gifts in the United States, outside the churches, were $33,500,000, and they have been steadily climbing, and if the present ratio keeps up the amount reported next April will beat all previous years by at least $12,000,000, and stand at $74,750,000. The year 1901 being the opening of a new century several interdenominational efforts were put forth for large accessions to the churches. Great spiritual revivals were planned. Accessions to church membership averaged well during the year, but spiritual awakening of the sort sought there was none. The raising of $15,000,000 by the Methodists North and $1,500,000 by the Methodists South, a total of $16,500,000, is the most gigantic thing of its kind any Protestant or Catholic, ever achieved.