The Plain Truth [excerpt]

     THE American people have often been charged in recent years, by a class of religious thinkers, with spiritual degeneracy to a large and alarming degree. One of our greatest national perils, it is said, is the growth of unbelief, of a sordid secularism shutting out all care and thought of things pertaining to a life beyond. Surely the spirit and attitude of the American people during the days since the great tragedy was enacted at Buffalo have not confirmed this view. The spirit has been that of a reverent and believing people, the attitude that of a people who have faith in the power and efficacy of prayer. He must needs have been a person dull and blind to all spiritual influences and impressions who has missed the import and significance of the universal call to prayer that followed the dreadful assault upon the President. The supplications came not only from the lips of prelates and clergymen, but from men and women in every walk of life, of every creed and sect, including many who have never made open profession of religion. It is an old and generally recognized truth that in the face of sudden perils or great emergencies, men disclose their real and true selves. May we not believe it to be true of a people when they are suddenly confronted with a grave national calamity? In this light there is ground for the belief that the American people to-day are reverent and God-fearing.