CHURCH DECADENCE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXII, Issue 9011, 26 November 1907, Page 2

CHURCH DECADENCE.

Per Press Association. —Copyright. Received NoV. 36, 10.15 a.m. Sydney, November 26. The annual report of the Church of England Association deplores the decadence of church attendance, the love of pleasure, and the permeation of schools and colleges with the so-called new theology. Churches have become transformed into ecclesiastical music and organ recitals, solo singing and tricky advertisements wore the order of the day, while the simple, plain evangelical service was put in the hack ground. Tiitualism, too, had become a very real and great danger in England, and tiie number of ritualistic institutions, in tiio shape of convents and sisterhoods, was so great as would incline one to think England was a Roman (Jathoilo country. South Africa was strongly permeated with the ritualistic craze, and New Zealand was said to he following ou the same linos, while it had a stronghold in tiie Commonwealth, where clerical autocracy was dragging the Church of England down.