RELIGIOUS LIFE IN AMERICA.*
THIS is an interesting, and in some parts a very amusing, book. The author frankly confesses that his survey of American religions life was superficial. He travelled through the country at the instance of his newspaper in order to write a series of articles for it. Much that is deepest in religious life naturally escaped the notice of such an observer, but he says that while his business was mainly with what lay on the surface, the existence of a deeper spiritual life than he speaks of may be fairly inferred from the facts which he records. Although the general tone of the book is hopeful, the author does not conceal his feeling that America has on its hands many religious and moral problems of great difficulty. Goethe once congratulated America on the fact that it was not troubled by those difficulties coming out of the past by which the nations of Europe were burdened. But the rapid growth of America, and the heterogeneous character of its population, have created difficulties as great as, if not greater than, any with which European peoples have to contend. The most depressing chapter in Mr. Abbott's voleme is that in which he describes his visit to Baltimore.
t!' Religious Life in America, a Record of Personal Observation. By Ernst Hamlin Abbott. Now York: The.Outlook Company. [V.]
This is not surprising, as his object was to inquire about religion, if the saying which he quotes truly describes the aspirations of the dwellers in that city. In Boston, he writes, they ask, "How much do you know ? " in New York, "How much are you worth?" in Philadelphia, "Who's your father?" in Baltimore, "What is there to eat ? "
In Baltimore the alienation of the working classes from the Church, of which we hear so much in England, was sorrow- fully admitted by the leaders of all religious parties. Neither the Churches nor the Christian Associations are able to get into living touch with them. The reasons given for this alienation by some working men whom Mr. Abbott inter- viewed only prove that they entirely misunderstood the mission of the Churches. But other reasons are named by Mr. Abbott himself for which the Churches are themselves responsible. Ministers of all denominations are unwilling, he says, to labour in working-class neighbourhoods if they can by any means get churches in more wealthy districts. The pastor of a Methodist church in a poor quarter, who has remained there of his own choice, told Mr. Abbott that he was looked upon by his fellow-ministers as an "amiable lunatic," adding as he said so, "as if the Four Gospels didn't exist." A Roman Catholic priest, the Director of Missions, who had a wide knowledge of the religious life in America, said : "The predominant vice of clergy, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, is ambition and' avarice ; that shuts the poor out." If these charges are even partially true, and we should think they are exaggerated, it is not difficult to understand the alienation of the working class from religion as so represented. The Churches, Mr. Abbott adds, are supported by the moneyed classes, and they often assume a prominence in the manage• ment, an air of proprietorship in them, which a working man
resents. He puts it thus, according to Mr. Abbott: "In the Opera House he can buy his right to a seat with money as good as anybody else's, or in a Beer Garden he can buy as good drinks as anybody can for the sum he is willing to spend; but in Church—well, he is admitted on sufferance." Mr. Abbott found that working men with a strain of idealism were quite as hostile to the Church as their more materialistic fellows,—perhaps more so. His general conclusion must be given in his own words :—
"During my trip I met a number of ministers who had gained some reputation for success among working men. In most cases I found the reputation resting on rather insecure foundations. As a rule, such success has been greatly magnified; or it has been temporary, originating in the excitement of some industrial agitation, and ending with its subsidence; or else it has been success, not with the great mass of self-respecting progressive working men, but with the slum dwellers."
The chapter on "The Religious Tendencies of the Negro" will be read with satisfaction by the friends of the coloured races. The old Coryba.ntic religion still survives, and a brief description is given of a Hallelujah meeting; but it is gradually making way for a more sober style of worship and of preaching which appears to exercise much greater influence upon their lives. Great progress has been made in education; and there seems to be a reasonable hope that a race originally torn from their native land to minister to the cupidity of the white man may in the end benefit by the change.
One of the most pleasant chapters in the book is that on "The New Tendencies in the Old South." Here the traveller found himself in a conservative atmosphere. The conception of religion appeared to be that it was mainly, if not exclusively, a preparation for the world to come. The matter of chief concern seemed to be, not the relation of the individual with God and his fellow-men, but the condition of the soul after death. Along with this old-fashioned view of religion there exists, however, a very noble and self-respecting conservatism in social relations. We are apt to think that conservatism can only flourish in the Old World ; but it would be difficult to find in Europe a more genuine and self-respecting con- servatism than that which Mr. Abbott found in Charleston :—
" The participation Of Charleston in the project of secession I can now regard only as an act of supererogation; for, though the city is now a loyal portion of the Union, to all intents and purposes it seems as separate from the United States as if it were an inde- pendent.municipality. In no respect is this isolation shown in better light than by the contempt which the highest society of the city displays towards the plutocrat. Although at its most exclusive functions may be seen a sempstress or a street-car conductor whose family, impoverished by `-the war between the States,' has in no way lost in social status, the merely riah are
inexorably excluded. No newspaper there would venture or care to print an account of these exclusive assemblies. The social set that provides the standard of social taste and tone for the city -would not tolerate the sycophancy of the yellow journals,' or indeed journals of other hue that devote whole columns to what rich women wear at the New York Horse Show. Charleston has a human nature of its own, in this respect so admirable that it is worthy of mention in an account of the religions life in America. From such a human nature there naturally grows a religions conservatism, not polemical or self-assertive, as in the North, but when undisturbed affable, when controverted merely cold like the Conservatism of an English University."
In New Orleans Mr. Abbott found himself among the
Creoles and Roman Catholic worship. He attended High Mass in the French Cathedral of St. Louis, and found the service "regal and courtly." Religion, he writes, appears here, "not something merely intellectual, as does the ultra. Protestant meeting,' nor something celestially pure, as does
the Anglican Liturgy, but something intensely human, terres- trial, dramatic ; the same wail in the Kyrie Ele-ison; the same militant confidence in the Credo; the same sudden awesome, shuddering silence at the sound of the Bell; the same sudden
awakening to the normal healthfulness and buoyancy of life upon egress to the open air and sunlight."
English readers will find much that is fresh in the chapter on "New Sects and Old." Besides the religious sects, there are in America what are called fraternal insurance organisa- tions, which are more or less religious, or, at all events, ethicaL The leaders in some cases are leaders of worship, and take the place of the clergyman, even at the burial of the dead. Mr. Abbott saw little of the Christian Scientists, but he bears witness to the large place they hold at present in America. He found, he says, on several occasions that the easiest way of approaching the topic of religions life was by introducing the specific subject of Christian Science. It would seem, how- ever, that already its votaries are submitting to those com- promises to which, sooner or later, all representatives of an impossible doctrine have to condescend ; for he met a doctor who had a considerable practice among them, and had been able to persuade them to take his drugs, and even to accept surgical aid.
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