leled
multiplication of the instrumentalities for doing the work. The
machine of religion, so to speak, has been perfected. The population
has been increasing fast; but churches have multiplied at least twice
as fast. Even in a great city like Glasgow we have a Protestant church
to every two thousand of the population.[2] And, inside the churches,
the multiplication of agencies has been even more surprising. Formerly
the minister did almost all the work; and it comprehended little more
than the two services on Sunday and the visitation of the
congregation; the elders helping him to a small extent in financing
the congregation and in a few other matters largely secular. But now
every congregation is a perfect hive of Christian activity. In a large
congregation the workers are counted by hundreds. Every imaginable
form of philanthropic and religious appliance is in operation.
Buildings for Sabbath Schools and Mission Work are added to the
church; and nearly every day of the week has its meeting.

The machine of religion is large and complicated, and it is manned by
so many workers that they get in each other's way; but, with all this
bustling activity, is the work done? This is the question which gives
us pause. Has the amount of practical Christianity increased in
proportion to the multiplication of agencies? Are the prospects of
religion as much brighter than they used to be as might have been
expected after all this expenditure of labour? Is Christianity
deepening as well as spreading?

In Glasgow, where the proportion of churches to population is so high,
they speak of two hundred thousand non-church-goers, that is, a third
of the inhabitants; and, if you go into one of our villages with two
or three thousand of a population, you in may find three or four
churches, belonging to different denominations; but you will usually
find even there a considerable body of non-church-goers. Not long ago
I heard a London clergyman state, that, if, any Sunday morning, you
went through the congregations belonging to the Church of England in
the district of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants in which he
labours, you would not, in all of them put together, find one man
present for every thousand of the population. One of the English
bishops recently admitted that in South London his Church is not in
possession; and certainly no other denomination is. Thus, with all our
appliances, we have failed even to bring the population wi