The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Church and Modern Life, by Washington
Gladden

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Title: The Church and Modern Life

Author: Washington Gladden

Release Date: May 7, 2004 [eBook #12290]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHURCH AND MODERN LIFE***

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Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end
of the book.

The Church and Modern Life

By

Washington Gladden

1908

Preface

"The time is come," said a New Testament prophet, "for judgment to begin
at the house of God." Perhaps that time ought never to pass, but if, in
any measure, the criticism of the church has of late been suspended, it
is certainly reopened now, in good earnest. Nor is this criticism
confined to outsiders; the church is forced to listen in these days to
caustic censures from those who speak from within the fold.

That such self-criticism is needed these chapters will not deny. That
the church is passing through a critical period must be conceded. But
the way of life is not obscure, and it seems almost absurd to indulge
the fear that the church, which has been providentially guided through
so many centuries, will fail to find it.

These pages have been written in the firm belief that the Christian
church has its great work still before it, and that it only needs to
free itself from its entanglements and gird itself for its testimony to
become the light of the world. Something of what it needs to do to make
ready for this great future, this little book tries to show.

Through all this study the thought has constantly returned to the young
men and women to whom the future of the church is committed; and while
the book is most likely first to fall into the hands of their pastors
and teachers, the author hopes that ways will be found of conveying its
message to those by whom, in the end, its truth will be made effective.

W. G.

First Congregational Church,
Columbus, Ohio, December 17, 1907.

Contents

I. The Roots of Religion
II. Our Religion and Other Religion