tter for the whole community
if churches had undertaken to do the work which is now in the hands of
many charitable and secret societies; then those who take so much interest
in these outside, often expensive, organizations would have had all their
interest in the churches. But the latter were for years so divided on
doctrines of belief that their whole attention has for the most part been
directed to other matters than their legitimate work, which has thus been
thrown into the hands of outside agencies. In these times it seems
difficult to maintain religious societies except where the element of fear
is dominant in the creed, where some remarkable preacher takes the
attention, or where the ritual or fashion attracts. Do not the papers often
speak of "fashionable" churches?

One thing which prevents many people from attending public worship on
Sunday is the increasing tendency towards ritualism,--or perhaps, we should
say, making the services less instructive than formerly, and more
devotional or emotional. This is seen not only in the Episcopal Church, but
also among many other denominations. Even Congregational
Orthodox--descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers--introduce prayer-books and
responsive services, and make their church buildings more ecclesiastical in
appearance, to look as much as possible like Episcopal churches. All these
things to many minds are not edifying, to say the least, and consequently
such persons absent themselves from service. Those too who are impressed by
emotional religion join the Episcopalians, so that for the time there is an
apparent increase in the attendance at the Episcopal churches, gained from
churches of other denominations; and especially too as fashion decrees
nowadays that "it is the proper thing to do" to go to the Episcopal Church,
whether you believe in its doctrines or not. So that at length there are a
great many people who think when church-going gets to be a matter of
fashion, there is quite as much real religion to be found outside as inside
the church; consequently they lose their interest. All these causes must be
taken together; of course no one thing alone accounts for the change in
regard to church attendance.

We quote the following remarks from a recent English paper ("The Unitarian
Herald"); they have a direct bearing on our subject, and are worthy of
consideration by those who neglect public worship or favor a more secular
Sunday. Among other things, the speaker (t