The statistics and charts belonging with this illustration are taken from Bulletin 103 of the United States "Bureau of the Census" "representing conditions as near as may be, at the close of the year 1906."
The general order or rank of the principal religious bodies in 1906 with respect to organization is presented in Table No. 1. (See page 104.)
The distribution of religious organizations by principal families and separate denominations in 1906, in comparison with similar figures for 1890, is given in Table No. 2. (See page 105.)
The seating capacity of the churches is given in Tables No. 3 and No. 4. (See page 106.)
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Diagram 1—Distribution of communicants or members, by principal families or denominations, for continental United States: 1890 and 1906.
The value of church property, with gains
by decades is shown in Tables No. 5 and
No. 6. (See pages 107-108.)
The charts here shown exhibit at a glance (1) the comparative strength of denominations or families for 1890 and 1906 and (2) the relative size of the church and the unchurched population.
[Note.—The designation "not church-members" in diagram 2, p. 104, represents the difference between the number reported as communicants or members and the total population; it embraces, therefore, children too young to become church-members, as well as that portion of the population which is eligible to church-membership, altho not affiliated with any religious denomination.]
Of the total estimated population of continental United States in 1906, 39.1 per cent., or not quite two-fifths, were reported as church-members. The corresponding percentage for 1890 was 32.7, or somewhat less than one-third, showing that the church has gained faster than the population 6.4 per cent.
(444)
CHURCH, SUCCESS OF THE
Mr. Beecher arose in his pulpit Sunday
after Sunday for forty years with the invariable
fortune of looking at a crowded
congregation, tho the most eloquent political
orator in the country can not draw the same
people to hear him five times in succession.
A country town of 3,000 people will support
from five to ten churches when it will hardly
pay the rent of an amusement hall. For
centuries, against intellectual doubt and the
weakness of the flesh, the Christian religion
has more than held its own in Europe and
America, and while the theater could attract
only by a continually changing appeal
to curiosity, the church has retained its
power with slight change and with only
enough flexibility to adjust its forms of government
to the character of different people.—Kansas
City Times.
(445)
