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Show DECAY OF RELIGION. Empty Sunday Schools Silly Excuses -Poor Hopes for the Future. "Many wealthy women of the present day cannot can-not be said to lave very decided views as to religion," re-ligion," said a matron who is not in sympathy with present religious tendencies, "and they show their indifference to the faith of their forefathers by filling Sunday full of all the enjoyments left over from week-days. Sunday has become, in fact, a day of amusement and entertaining in many wealthy families, and if church is considered at all, the time set aside for worship is clipped to the shortest short-est limit, the devout one arriving late and leaving before the sermon her numerous engagements demanding de-manding it. v "The average Sunday morning of many fashionables fash-ionables in town or in the country, is looked forward for-ward to as the only lazy time of the week, unless motoring to the country from town or from one country place to another is the plan. The consequence con-sequence is that the children are left to their governesses gov-ernesses or nurses, and instead of Sunday school there is a walk in the park or an excursion in another an-other motor. These women lend their names to all charity benefits in connection with church affairs and entertain the 'cloth' at stated intervals, but when it comes to their children being sent to Sunday Sun-day school they balk and give some very interesting interest-ing reasons for not sending them. A favorite one is, 'I fear a contagious disease.' If by any chance the children are placed on the attendance roll, the slightest illness or evidence of disinclination keeps them away, and damp or windy weather is invariably in-variably taken into consideration. In the country in summer they are never sent, as the children of the nearest village are sure to go and the 'disease' excuse is available- So the neighboring beach, if the place is on the coast, or the portion of the lawn reserved for nurses ot governesses with children at the club reservations in the mountains are gay with tiny girls and boys, who flit about like pink-sashed pink-sashed or blue-trouseTed butterflies and revel in being little heathens. "It is quite safe to assume that no child who has -even half -educated parents is without the knowledge of some little prayer, for in all classes children are taught a few simple stanzas or verses which they nightly lisp. Even atheist parents cannot can-not prevent this, because of the nurse in charge, who surreptitiously drill her charges in saying one of the time-honored 'Now I lay me' or "Gentle Jesus' verses before they close their eyes . As children chil-dren grow older they follow the example of their elders, and it is a rare case indeed when a son or daughter develops a tendency for religion when the parents have evinced none. "The church of the future has a very pooT prospect pros-pect if such signs are read aright, and when one considers the strict Puritan Quaker, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic antecedents of the people most representative in this country, they are hard to understand. The great financiers who have left vast fortunes to their children were men of deeply religious convictions, but their grandchildren seem totally to lack the religious instinct." |