Publisher's Synopsis
From the Preface.
It is proposed that the following pages contain lessons from experience, not theories yielded by reflection. Hence the "Institutional Church" is viewed from the standpoint of lower New York, where I have been at work for eighteen years. It would not be strange, however, if the same conditions and problems should be reproduced in other cities. But the environment of each church so varies with its situation that the methods which are fruitful of good in one spot, may elsewhere prove barren and useless. One grows shy of suggesting theories. We must make experiments; just as a ferry boat bumps against the sides of the dock, and seems to feel its way to its exact destination. In Institutional work we frequently find ourselves on the wrong path, and have to retrace our steps in silence. As Cardinal Newman says: "To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."
At the risk of apparent incompleteness, only such kinds of educational and philanthropic work will be here discussed as have been actually tried by my own church in lower New York.
