Empty Churches ?
SK—Janus's comment on the large attendance at the London Mission- ary Society's annual meeting, over which the editor of the Spectator presided, prompts one to add a few more facts. The Baptist Mission- ary Society- also packed Westminster- Chapel- for -its -meeting, and in the same week Baptist youth crowded the Albert Hall. The Church Missionary Society filled the -Empress Hall (about 10,000 people) mostly with people who had paid for their seats. Dr. Leslie Cooke reports that in connection with the Forward Movement of the Con- gregational Union he and his colleagues have addressed some 40,000 people in large public meetings including crowded audiences in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, and the Birmingham Town Hall. It is, of course, no new thing-for the evangelical-missionary organisations in this country to have well attended annual meetings; they were born in public meetings and have always renewed their life in them. What is worth noting, however, is the continued vitality of this tradition, and its appeal to young people at a time when the Churches have lost their primacy in local and national life. It is a fact that the com- mentators on the decay of organised religion must note.—Yours faith-
Previous page
