Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/39

 THE CHURCH IN THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT 2$

and down tenement stairs and stand the physical and mental wear of house-to-house visiting when he has been working all the week in an ill-ventilated shop amid the clang of machinery ? They do this extra labor ; they rejoice in doing it ; but often they break down under it. It is grand ; it is also heartbreaking.

Our type of church life, with its abundant use of volunteer labor, makes the churches dependent on some measure of leisure and surplus energy among their members. In the measure in which the people are drained of their strength by excessive hours of labor, and by poor ventilation, insufficient noonday rest, etc., in that measure the churches are robbed of their workers. In really poor districts the churches even now depend mostly on paid labor and on the help of workers of the upper classes from other churches. But that is a retrograde tendency, and if it became general would change the very type of the religion preached.

That leads us to another point. The increasing social distress and degradation of the people has led to the establishment of the so-called institutional churches. There are but few churches in every city conspicuous for their institutional features, but scarcely any churches have entirely escaped the influences of this tend- ency. It has modified them all. This is greatly to the credit of the churches. However ill considered some of the manifes- tations may be, it is at any rate an effort to cope with a sad situa- tion in a Christly spirit. But that does not do away with the fact that a fearful burden has thus been imposed on the churches. Institutional features greatly increase the cost of church work. They make immense demands on the energy, care, and organizing ability of the leaders. Unless there arc ample funds to employ paid helpers, the extra work will mostly fall back on the pastor. It is like increasing the diameter, weight, and revolutions of a fly-wheel without increasing the size of the axle around which it spins. Insurance agents ought to regard the pastor of an insti- tutional church as a bad risk. It is murderous work. And the more willing and consecrated a man is, the faster will it wear