Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1905 — IS THE PULPIT DECLINING. [ARTICLE]

IS THE PULPIT DECLINING.

Quality of the Men Who Are Preparing . for the Ministry. After a thorough investigation of the question. "Is there a decline in the ministry?" Everett P. Tomlinson, in. the World's Work, sums up the results of his inquiries' among men of all denominations and most of the professions. lie says:: From those opinions, facts and figures certain conclusions can be drawn that shed light upon the problem. There is no real "dearth" of students for the ministry. There is a slight back-set at .the present time, but it is not so great as has occurred in other years, ami reports of attendance of students- in -the theological seminaries, when compared with similar reports of twenty-live years ago. show a marked and marvelous increase. In some quarters there is a deteri-

oration in the quality of students, but the reports are not altogether unanimous. Methodists and Episcopalians report a decided Increase in numbers and in quality, and other religious bodies .vary in localities and colleges in this respect. There is a marked change in the sources of supply. The West and South provide a much larger proportion of students than the East? The response is greater in the newer regions than in the old, in the country than in the city, in the small churches than in the larger. Thebe 4 s also a steadily increasing drift away from the seminaries located in the-country to those that are located in. or near the large cities. The chief causes keeping young mon from the ministry are the poverty of the calling, the fear of the lack of intellectual and moral freedom, the conviction that the potty outweighs

the larger in- the work, and the suspicion of the present “beneficiary” system” which ettsts a blight over all. “Heresy,? or the fear of its smirch, is the greatest obstacle. There is a practically unanimous report of a higher type of life and of more Christian students in our colleges than ever before. The deepest interest of the communities now is in questions that might be termed spiritual rather than religious, certainly not theological. Theology as a “science” has given piace to Christianity as a life. Tbe church as an organization has a weaker hold, while at the same time there is a greater interest in all vital questions and affairs. As a consequence what our forefathers heard as a distinctive “call to the ministry” is now finding expression in other and widely varied forms of service. There is a blotting out of the for-

mer false distinction between. “secular” and “sacred.” Whatever men may think as to certain men or peoples, all history is now believed to-be “sacred” and every day and every honest work as "holy.” This fact has led many earnest young men who in former years might have believed themselves to be “called” to the work of the ministry now to believe that they can make their lives'count for as much, perhaps more, if they give themselves to other lines of work that at one time were termed "secular,”