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like those of the Sunday newspaper; with unnecessary and merciless secular works, like those of many corporations; with secular pleasures, like those of the Sunday theatres; and even with secular sins, like those of the saloon-we so far agree to abandon the Sabbath, and to content ourselves with the low type of Christianity so widely prevailing on the continent of Europe. Are our American cities, still largely within reach of the control of descendants of Puritans, Huguenots and Covenanters, ready to do that? Here is an involved peril which is comparatively new to our churches.

New also are the perils of Romanism and the saloon, which Dr. Dorchester discussed. Take the saloon-while drinking intoxicating liquors to excess is no new thing for northern races, our system of drinking has pernicious elements of novelty. The maddening strength, the poisonous adulterations, and perhaps the cheapness, of our liquors are relatively new. Our drinking customs also have degenerated; for the bar has largely supplanted the sideboard, and so far removed the decent restraints of the home. The organ

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ization of the traffic is new-new in the formation of great whisky and beer "trusts for economy of manufacture and for control of drinking-places, new in its systematic creation of drinking habits to keep up the demand for its wares, new in frequent alliances with gross moral evils, like lust and gambling, to enlarge its business by combining enticements to several human passions at once, and new in methodically coercing and corrupting political candidates and parties for its selfish moneyed interests. Whatever plan of meeting it you may advocate, you cannot ignore the monstrous novelty of the peril.

This suggests the new, general and cumulative political perils of the city. While the city is growing, our "boodlers," in many centres, at least, are multiplying. Their huge temptations increase with their increasing opportunities. Why? Because municipal government, which is at once the touchstone and the Gordian knot of all the forms of government, has assumed appalling proportions and perplexities. Because intelligent citizens, who ought to be volunteer tribunes of the people, fall into despair or become possessed with the demon of covetousness. Because their abdicated throne is often usurped by unscrupulous demagogues and by the ignorant, irresponsible and even purchasable electors, who also belong to the royal family in our republican form of government.

This is a peril of the Church, because it is a peril to human nature and because the only cure for it is the redemption of the individual.

Another peril, with new features, is seen in the fact that the city is buffeted back and forth between selfish wealth and no less selfish poverty. Mammon is the god. We look out upon our broad and rich domain, producing almost every known variety of plant and animal; we look up toward our two lordly mountain systems, which span the nation like the buttresses of some gigantic bridge and lift us above the water level; we look down into the depths of the earth at the retorts of gas, seas of oil, forests of coal and vaults of precious stones, which form our tempting treasure-trove; we look around to our matchless array of lakes and rivers, which both feed and drain the continent like the blood-vessels of a human body; we look abroad over our two great ocean highways, defending our coast, indenting it with the best of harbors, and spurring us on to compete fearlessly for the commerce of mankind; and as our hearts dilate with pride in contemplating the exhaustless material resources of this virgin land, we disdain to have our spirits ruled by the meek and lowly Nazarene. This supposititious omnipotence of wealth sets up a wrong standard, for it relegates character to the background. It tempts young men to believe that society adopts the motto of "Every Man in his Humor:" "Get money; still get money, boys; no matter by what means." It inspires the craze for speculation, which "maketh haste to be rich and hath an evil eye," which undermines sound and honest business methods, and which fancies that opulence can be legitimately gained by some sort of gambling without being earned. It fosters greedy monopolies. It eats the heart out of public spirit and Christian love, and absorbs man in the dirt-philosophy of his muck-rake. It cankers those who are unsuccessful along the avaricious line of living with bitter disappointment and hatred, which cruelly divide and enfeeble society. It encourages some of them to adopt chimerical schemes of social reorganization or disorganization, which are all vitiated by the simple fact that "out of the heart are the issues of life." It affords plausible grounds for those wretched appeals which anarchy makes to the discontented poor. The real peril of anarchy is also the peril of avarice, namely, the deadly selfishness of sin. Our peril is lest we should mistake the true remedy for this fundamental evil. Chicago is about the only American city that succeeds in the legal suppression of anarchism. Johann Most ought to have lived in

Chicago last year; for, in that case, he would now be out of reach of the petty penalties of a New York court. But not even Chicago's legal treatment can penetrate to the seat of this malady. Human law can deal with it only as a skin disease. But essentially, anarchism is a heart disease, which only the Gospel can adequately reach. What is anarchism but hatred of all authority? Hatred of human authority-anarchy; hatred of divine authority-atheism. Anarchy and atheism are but different aspects of the same peril. Christ's Royal Law and Golden Rule in every individual heart and life is the only radical cure; and that cure strikes at the root of every human ill. Oh, the deadly peril of not perceiving it!

Closely connected with this thought stands one of the peculiar religious perils of the city-the tendency of the rich and intelligent to take religious care exclusively of themselves. One of Christ's personal credentials was "to the poor the gospel is preached." But look at the Protestant churches of the great city! In many a small town there are so many that they must live, like feudal barons, by making raids on one another. In almost no single large city are there half enough. In New York, says Mr. Lewis E. Jackson, below Fourteenth Street, with a population mostly poor, there is one weak Evangelical church to about 5,400 souls; but above Fourteenth Street, where most of the rich reside, there is one comparatively strong Evangelical Church to about 3,100. In Chicago, there is, approximately, one church to every 4,500; and nearly all the vigorous churches are on the avenues among the wealthier classes. These representative examples may be natural, but they are not Christian. We might learn much on this subject from the Catholic Church, but far more from Christ, who bids us go out into the alleys and lanes and compel men to come to the gospel-feast. Our peril is that we have so largely lost contact, touch, with the masses. For even the tramps are souls for whom Christ died. We need, imperiously, what Dr. Russell, of Oswego, has so nobly emphasized-more thorough and complete co-operation among the churches. Human nature may not be ripe for organic union of denominations. But human nature is rotting for want of concerted action among the churches. There remains little sectarian hostility. I remember that when I went to Chicago, five years ago, apprehensive in my inexperience, I was at once reassured by the warm welcome of all Evangelical pastors. Sharing as I then did in the popular notions of Chicago's relative wickedness, I one day

asked a Baptist neighbor to explain this heartiness of fellowship. "Why," said he, "young man, don't you see that we have such a task in fighting the devil, that we have neither time nor energy left to fight one another?"

But with all our fraternity, our peril still is that we lack comprehensive plans and sustained efforts to carry the gospel to the entire community. We need to emphasize the essentials that unite us; and, leaving without accent the minor facts that divide us, to supersede the desultory and scattered endeavors of unrelated churches with a scheme of coalition which will enlist every church and every Christian in preaching the gospel to every creature in the city.

A final peril, old as Judas or Sanballat, yet new as our own latest doubt, may coil itself in the suspicion that the God of Sabaoth is incompetent to win his own battle. The solution of all these problems belongs fundamentally to him and not to us. Who surmises that he is driving us on toward catastrophe and downfall? He does not need us, but we certainly need him. "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Hosts of the wicked may encamp against us; but if the Lord be our leader, they that be for us are more than they that be against us. Human nature may be opposite; but the divine-human nature is on our side. Sin may abound, but grace does much more abound. Elijah under the juniper-tree is our warning. Paul is our example. To the Christians in Rome, the representative of all the ancient perils of the city, he wrote: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation." To the Christians of vulgar, frivolous and avaricious Corinth, he wrote: "We preach Christ crucified, . . . Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." To the Ephesians, who sat chilled under the shadow of the temple of the heathen Diana, he wrote of "the exceeding greatness of God's power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead." If with this triumphant faith we actually preach the gospel to all the citizens, we may yet be enabled, by Christ's grace, to transform our. imperiled city into "the city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

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REMARKS BY REV. SAMUEL L. LOOMIS,
OF BROOKLYN,

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FATHERS AND BRETHREN: I am glad that there has been no statement this morning, such as has been very common among Christian people, to the effect that the modern city is, in and of itself, an evil thing, an evil beast, a monstrous, inhuman thing, because it is a city, and because it is growing. For, sir, unless we intend to go with Mr. Ruskin, and allow that every machine, that every steam-engine, that the modern contrivances for reaping and harvesting, are bad and ought to be done away with, and that we should return to the days of the sickle and the stage-coach, we must acknowledge that the city, which has been produced by these things, is part and parcel with modern civilization. It, sir, is not evil because it is a city or because it is growing, but because as such a city it is growing.

Every man whose morality or intelligence, especially whose morality, is below the average morality of the community in which he dwells, is, in his measure, a peril to that community. The city is a peril to the modern State, because its average citizen, in morality and education and intelligence, is below the average morality and intelligence of the inhabitants of our land.

The only way to improve the city-this is the matter in a nutshell-the only way to wipe away its threat from the face of the earth, is to use the power that God has put into this world for lifting men up. He has given a power which is sufficient to lift men from a lower estate to a higher one. He has put into our hands a force which will raise the average manhood; and when this force has been sufficiently and wisely brought into use in the great cities, the peril and the menace of those places will gradually disappear. They may become even centres of good, centres of light and power and purity, just as they have become centres of darkness. And yet, in the present state of things, the cities,

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