The American Church Monthly A Magazine of comment, criticism and review dealing with questions confronting the Anglican Communion and more especially the Church in the United States TEMPLE PUBLISHING CORPORATION President: GEORGE A. ARMOUR, Princeton, N. J. Vice-President: GUY VAN AMRINGE, 55 Liberty Street, New York Secretary: THE REV. CHARLES C. EDMUNDS, D.D., 6 Chelsea Square, New York IN 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war, an agnostic woman of our acquaintance was grievously distressed at being told by some physician that in time of war more boy babies were born than girl babies. The cause of her distress was that this seemed to point to an intelligent force controlling the universe and therefore to prove indisputably the existence of God. That would necessitate the complete revision of her philosophy of life. We asked several physicians about the matter, and they assured us that it was as the woman had feared. An investigation of statistics made at the time however led us to the conclusion that there was no noticeable increase in male births after periods of war. Recently we were impressed by the fact that a large proportion of the infants presented for baptism since the war have been male infants. We should like to hear from other clergy on this point. We therefore consulted an expert statistician, Dr. Louis I. Dublin of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and the following interesting facts we owe to his painstaking investigations. There are no data available for the year 1919. The best data for 1918 showed that for the groups of States reporting births to the United States government, the sex ratio was 1058 male births per 1000 female births. The same ratio was shown for 1917. In 1916 the figure was 1057; and in 1915, 1055. In some states during 1918 the proportion of male births was greater, and in others, less than in 1917. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont, Maryland, Indiana, Kentucky and Utah showed increases in the proportion of male to female births during 1918. There were significant decreases for Michigan, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. The figure was stationary during 1918 in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. A series of sex ratios of births in New York City and Philadelphia is available from 1909 to 1918. The highest ratio in New York City, 1056, was shown in 1909 and the least in 1914. The next high point is shown for 1917, 1054. The 1918 ratio was one point lower than that of 1917. The Philadelphia series shows a maximum in 1913, 1081, and the minimum for 1910, 1040. From these quotations, it will be seen that an increase in the proportion of male births is not always recorded during and after war time. These changes in the sex ratio of births occur because of shifting in the factors which influence the age at marriage, and the ages at which women have children. It has been shown from obstetrical statistics of many decades that the younger the mother, the higher the ratio of males in births to such mothers. Thus, from the registration statistics of 1918, the births to such mothers, 15 to 19 years of age, showed a sex ratio of 1065. Births to mothers, 35 to 39 years of age, registered a sex ratio of 1058. For more than 5,000 births to mothers, 45 to 49 years, the sex ratio was 1016. During war times, there are likely to be more marriages among young women than in ordinary times, when there are no such stimuli to marriage as recruiting, draft exemption, etc. The result is that an increased proportion of the births of the ensuing year will be to young mothers. It may be true, also, that the better economic conditions prevailing among wage-working civil populations in war-times are responsible for earlier marriges. In order to illustrate the changes in the ages of mothers, we may quote from the available American birth statistics. Fifty-two per cent of the births of 1917 were to mothers between 20 and 39 years of age, whereas, 55 per cent of the births of 1918 occurred among mothers at this age period. There was also a significant increase in the percentage of births to mothers 15 to 19 years of age. The data for England and Wales show slightly higher sex-ratios for the war years, 1914 to 1918. For the years 1911 to 1915 the ratio was 1038; during 1916, 1917 and 1918 the ratios were 1049, 1044 and 1048 respectively. Theoretically, the proportions of the two sexes should be approximately the same. But actually, the number of males exceeds the number of females at birth and this is explained by some students on the ground of ante-natal selection. The Desire to Be Comfortable THE predominating desire in many Christians is to be free from pain and discomfort. They think that one of the chief uses of religion is to make them comfortable. If they faithfully obey the precepts of the Church, they assume that they will in consequence be healthy, wealthy and wise, -beyond the average. There are many modern cults which set forth earthly rewards of health or prosperity as the leading inducement for prospective investors. It is to be feared however that this state of mind is not limited to the cults. It is to be found also in those Church people who suppose that so long as they practice their religion consistently, no physical harm can happen to them or to their property, and nothing can mar their happiness. The trouble with such people is that they desire to follow Jesus, but without the cross, without thorns, without nails, without toil, and without suffering. They forget that only if we suffer with Him can we reign with Him, that without the cross there can be no crown. Not even the Blessed Virgin was permitted to look forward to a life of undisturbed peace and happiness. Simeon prophesied to her, "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also." How much more then should we expect suffering, if we are faithful disciples of Jesus. "The disciple is not above his master." The world bring what it is, a life of faithful obedience to the will of God must encounter opposition, scorn, hatred, persecution. "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." There must be this element of bitterness in the life of every true Christian. We cannot remain in complete harmony with the careless, self-indulgent society of the unbelieving world. We must run counter to established preju dices. We must incur unpopularity with worldly-minded people in the Church. In fact the constant resistance to the temptation to be worldly-minded ourselves carries with it its own bitterness. The Bread of Life must always be slightly bitter in comparison with the ambrosial nectar of the world. Shall We Expurgate the New Testament? THE first volume of what promises to be an important work, "The Beginnings of Christianity," edited by F. J. Foakes-Jackson, D.D., and Kirsopp Lake, D.D., has just been published by Macmillan. This volume deals with the "Jewish, Gentile, and Christian Backgrounds." The editors, who are both priests in the English orders though at present professors at the Union Seminary and at Harvard respectively, think that the records of the life and teachings of Jesus are of a scant and scrappy character. The Gospel of S. Mark, they tell us, is not history in our sense of the term. The writer has sought mainly to edify his readers, not to tell the truth. He looked back on Jesus and His acts through a haze of faith. He has relied too much on the memory of eye-witnesses who have distorted the facts. The editors conclude that Jesus probably never spoke of Himself as the Son of Man, nor did He regard Himself as the Messiah. He was simply a prophet inspired by the Spirit of God. This general position may be inferred from these two sentences in the preface:-"It is becoming increasingly certain that Christianity in the first century achieved a synthesis between the Graeco-Oriental and the Jewish religion in the |