OCR Text |
Show THE CHURCH VS. THE SALOON Every once in a while, an editor of some liquor journal grows 1 pathetic in his pretended concern over what he calls the "decline j of the church." He is profuse in his advice to the members on how j to remedy the so-called decline. The burden of his argument is j that the church is losing out because it has "entered politics", in other words, because it is fighting the saloon and all its attendant evils. The fact is, the individual church that is losing out is usually , 4 the church that is not aggressive in this fight to rid the country of the liquor curse. x However, the church is not on the drtline. . The census bureau sustains this. According to figured triven out by the census bureau last week, the church membership in the United States has increased from 35,068,058 to 42,0-14,374 during dur-ing the ten-year period which ended December 31, 1916. The number of churches increased during that time from 212,230 to 228,007. There was an increase of from 164,830 to 191,722 in the number of ministers and an inci ease of 15,337,811 to 20,569 881 in the number of Sunday school scholars, while the number of Sunday schools increased rom 112,722 to 207,789 and of Sunday school officers from 1,746,074 to 2,019,293. Compare the growth of churches of the country as shown by j these figures with the slump in the liquor traffic, and it is easy . 'to distinguish the trend of the times. . j ; Churches are growing stronger and more numerous while the ! , saloons and breweries are being closed by the thousands. j |