“The church is out of touch with the masses. Everything has progressed except Christianity. The pulpit has too many bigots, too many bores, too many _hell‐fire screechers_ for the enlightened thought of the day. The church is obliged to accept any applicant for the ministry who is respectable. Even with this latitude, Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist vocations show a remarkable falling off in twenty‐five years.” (Z. ’08‐324.) “Rev. Charles A. Eaton at the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, Cleveland, spoke as follows: ‘In Italy one‐third of the people at the very outside, are more or less nominal followers of the Church of Rome; another third, possibly, are more or less sympathetic toward the Church; while another third are out and out continually and completely antagonistic, apparently, not only to the Church of Rome, but to all forms of Christianity. You enter France—the same story is true, only aggravated and multiplied a thousand fold. You enter Great Britain, which I consider to be the last citadel of Christianity in the world, with a people more robust and sane in their religious interests and sympathies than any other people. And what is the condition there? The non‐conformist churches of Great Britain last year not only made no progress, but met, according to their statistics, with an absolute loss of 18,000; the Baptist Church of Great Britain last year lost 5,000 people. In the year 1905 there were nearly 7,000 Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Methodist churches that had not one single member unite with them in twelve months. In a recent year in New York city, according to the statement of Dr. Aked, of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, 335 Protestant churches reported a net gain that year of 386 members. That is to say 335 churches gained one member apiece and fifty of them gained two in twelve months. Brethren, I say to you this morning, that the American Church is dying—it is dying! _It is dying!_ Don’t forget it.’ ” (Z. ’08‐211.) “A declaration by the Rev. Dr. Charles E. McClellan, pastor of the Fairhill Baptist Church, that ‘Protestantism in the United States is fast decaying and will soon be a thing of the past,’ aroused a storm at the fifty‐third session of the North Philadelphia Baptist Association. Doctor McClellan spoke on what he called the decline of Protestantism while making his report as chairman of the missionary committee. ‘The spirit of Protestantism is dying in the United States, and it will soon be a thing of the past,’ he said. ‘Philadelphia, both denominationally and religiously, is going to perdition at a rapid rate. Recently I attended the services in one of our churches, at which I had been invited to speak. I found in attendance nineteen adults and one child. The same condition exists all over the city. We have large, magnificent churches, but small congregations, showing that it is easy to get money, but hard to get men.’ ”—Z. ’10‐373.