he City of Churches--
states that the great mass of that Christian city was out of Christ,
and that more professing Christians went to the theatre than to
the prayer meeting. This, certainly, from their standpoint, is a
most terrible declaration. Brooklyn, you know, is one of the great
religious centres of the world--a city in which nearly all the
people are engaged either in delivering or in hearing sermons; a
city filled with the editors of religious periodicals; a city of
prayer and praise; and yet, while prayer meetings are free, the
theatres, with the free list entirely suspended, catch more Christians
than the churches; and this happens while all the pulpits thunder
against the stage, and the stage remains silent as to the pulpit.
At the same meeting in which the Rev. Dr. Cuyler made his astounding
statements the Rev. Mr. Pentecost was the bearer of the happy news
that four out of five persons living in the city of Brooklyn were
going down to hell with no God and with no hope. If he had read
the revised Testament he would have said "Hades," and the effect
of the statement would have been entirely lost. If four-fifths of
the people of that great city are destined to eternal pain, certainly
we cannot depend upon churches for the salvation of the world. At
the meeting of the Brooklyn pastors they were in doubt as to whether
they should depend upon further meetings, or upon a day of fasting
and prayer for the purpose of converting the city.

In my judgment, it would be much better to devise ways and means
to keep a good many people from fasting in Brooklyn. If they had
more meat, they could get along with less meeting. If fasting
would save a city, there are always plenty of hungry folks even in
that Christian town. The real trouble with the church of to-day
is, that it is behind the intelligence of the people. Its doctrines
no longer satisfy the brains of the nineteenth century; and if the
church proposes to hold its power, it must lose its superstitions.
The day of revivals is gone. Only the ignorant and unthinking can
hereafter be impressed by hearing the orthodox creed. Fear has in
it no reformatory power, and the more intelligent the world grows
the more despicable and contemptible the doctrine of eternal misery
will become. The tendency of the age is toward intellectual liberty,
toward personal investigation. Authority is no longer taken for
truth. People are beginning to find that all the great an