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Show WFIC WILL SAVE THE AMERICAN AMERI-CAN CITIES? The Catholic World Magazine for February devotes considerable space to the ptoclem of the salvation of city life. I Its leader is interested with this burn-j burn-j ir.g tojpie, and it has a second article ' telling of the marvelous work done by i Pere Gennettes in the tity of Paris. The theme of both thes? articles is that the Catholic church alone ha in her hands the problem of the evangelization evangeli-zation of urban life.. This is interesting in viey of the extraordinary efforts being be-ing made just now by e angelisti'j forces to awaken the religious fervor j in the Ciity of Brooklyn. Protestantism I has lest its grip on the city life of our ': country. Protestant churches are empty and the violent efforts in census-taking, census-taking, house-tc-hor.se visitations and Baxter street method. of "pulling in" are indicative of a futile and fatal struggle for life. Protestant revival services aie notorious for their transitory transi-tory influence. Not many days will have rasped after a revival has subsided sub-sided when there will come a backsliding back-sliding from church membership and consequent cooling of individual fervor. fer-vor. The reason is because there n- organization to hold, there is no cN.r-matic cN.r-matic life to steady, there is no authoritative author-itative moral teacher to guide, and finally fin-ally there is no satisfying devotional life to constantly attract. Because the Catholic Church has a'.l this she hold. the key to the situation. It is questionable, question-able, however, if the church is doing all she might in this regard. Too fre- ; quently the energies of church life have been expended in the rearing of costly temples, and there haa come a weakened weak-ened and etiolated spiritual life under the shadow of those temples. It is far better to have modest churches with a, good people than grand basilicas in ths midst of a vicious pooulation. |