Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Second Presbyterian Church of Peoria, Illinois
If I should follow the lead of my feelings I should spend all your time to-day thus in a heart to heart talk. But your committee has commanded me to try to make a more formal address. And, no doubt, their wish is wise. Mere emotion may not always be a trusty guide; better, perhaps, a prudent judgment at the helm - then a safer voyage and a surer haven.
I have chosen (as a sort of introduction to the exercises that shall follow) for a theme the question, Is Christianity a Failure?
The question seems fitting to-day as we stand at the opening of another half-century of church history; and especially so, inasmuch as certain prominent leaders of thought have ventured to assert that there are evidences of declining religious life. The Westminster Review, of England, has lately claimed that there are distinct marks of positive decay in the Christian church. Even Ian maclaren (dr. John Watson) has seemed to sympathize somewhat with this View. For years others of less ability and less honesty of purpose, have called the Bible a worn out book, the church a useless burden on society, Christianity a decaying delusion. Voltaire introduced the idea long ago by prophesying that Christianity would not outlive the nineteenth century. It is not, there fore, Without hope of profit that we should face this question fairly, frankly, honestly, Is Christianity a Failure?
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