Two Ways [editorial]

Accounts of the camp meeting being held at Desplaines read like a chapter from the past when religion was a grim thing forbidding the pleasures of life, so different are the utterances of many of the speakers there from those that we may hear in churches, whether Methodist or not, on any Sunday of the year.
In Sunday night's meeting the Rev. H. C. Hart, a professional evengelist (an ugly combination), was one of the speakers. These paragraphs, culled from his address as quoted in the Chicago papers, give one an idea of the trend of the whole.
"You may go to church on Sunday, but if on the next night you go to a miserable dance where your legs are entwined in a damnable turkey trot or tango or one of those other devil dances, do you think you are going to heaven?"
"Lots of people think they can get a free ticket to heaven by stirring up soup or baking a cake or holding a rummage sale."
"If the hand that on Sunday holds a Sunday school paper hold a pack of cards on the next night--that's a sham."
The topic upon which Reverened Hart based his remarks was, "Be honest." Reflection upon his words may well arouse a doubt of the honesty of the speaker himself, for it seems incredible that anyone in this, the enlightened twentieth century, should be so very narrow in his views if he has had any opportunity to observe the signs of the times.
How much more inspiring and encouraging is the statement of Bishop MacDowell, t he more effective by the contrast of its evidence of sober common-sense with the unconsidered utterances of the professional evangelist, the "bearer of good tidings," is the quieter man than he who raves at things as they are, with no weapon but the fear of hell to drive young people into obedience to his teachings.
"Great Methodism will not be destructive, critical, impatient, blind," the bishop said. "It will keep its head, it will keep its feet, it will keep its faith, and it will hold on to the things that are eternal while it adjusts itself to things that are passing."
Reverend Hart is forgetting to adjust himself to the things that are passing and failing to discriminate between the temporal and the eternal. There may be among those encamped at Desplaines a few of the hysterical, emotional sort who are affected by the words of the evangelist, but we believe their number is growing less, that the rank and file of the church membership of today are men and women who have the faith that shows itself in works, to whom religion is a fact and not an emotion. To them the words of Bishop MacDowell will come as the message from one thinking man to another, both of whom are desiring the coming of the kingdom of God upon earth, both of whom are working to build that kingdom and are seeking the aid of other rational human beings.