of the West Ends of great cities, and
among the gardened villas of suburbs that this degeneration has evinced
the fulness of its power. Where children could grow in health and
happiness, thence selfishness has banished them; where, amid squalor,
filth, and vice they are almost doomed from birth, there they are
multiplied. Degeneration always {11} begins at the top, and works
downward. At the top only one-fourth are left; at the bottom,
two-thirds are still left. But the dry-rot is creeping downward. The
lower middle class is following its betters; and the artisan is
following hard after. Only in the Canongate is the shouting of
children at play still to be heard, and there the State surrounds the
last survivors of the race with every temptation to evil and ruin.

This is a grim fact when the future of the race is considered; and of
its grimness there can be no doubt. The vital statistics do not lie,
and they are the proof. There are other proofs. The statistics of
baptisms are steadily falling. In many West End congregations the
sacrament of baptism has become a rarity! Sunday schools are getting
smaller and smaller. The records of seven years (1908-14) showed the
appalling fact that fourteen of the chief Free Church denominations of
Britain have lost 257,952 scholars. The materials out of which the
Church {12} was formerly built are crumbling away. Empty cradles mean
empty Sunday schools, empty classes, and, ere long, empty pews. The
strangest thing is that in face of the forces that threaten destruction
the Churches are silent--as if mesmerised! In these last years even
the church-going population of this country was rapidly reverting to
the base conditions in which Christianity found humanity, and from
which the Cross in a measure rescued it. And the Church has lost the
power of sounding the trumpet and warning the people of coming judgment.

IV

When we inquire into the causes of this parlous state to which the race
has been brought, we find that the greatest is self-deception. If men
and women realised what they were doing, they would be horrified. But
they don't realise it. They are acting on noble principles! They can
provide for and educate two children {13} better than six; therefore,
in the interests of the race, they will only have two! One parent
wrote to the Press recently that he could only give a public-school
education to one boy, and therefore he had no more! They have the id