Good Form and Christian EtiquetteHenry, S. M. I. (Sarepta Myrenda Irish)
Religion
Good Form and Christian Etiquette
Henry, S. M. I. (Sarepta Myrenda Irish)
Etiquette
It is not good form to talk at table about the physical organs, or the
processes of digestion, excepting when some special occasion should
require, and then it should be by the most delicate allusions. The
mention of any form of disease, or of death, would be considered
exceeding bad form; also any malodorous topic of any sort. Table
conversation should be such as to inspire every good feeling;
appetizing, promotive of good fellowship, comradeship, faith, hope;
optimistic in every sense of the word. The children should be taught
that no complaints or grievances are to be mentioned there, because such
things always have a tendency to destroy relish for food, and retard the
process of digestion. A chronic grumbler at the table will threaten a
whole family with dyspepsia. “Let your conversation be seasoned with
salt,” is a good injunction; and if the Scriptural rule is followed at
home, the child will grow up capable of taking the gospel message
anywhere without personal offense, even if he must go into many untried
places. Neither will it be necessary for him to “premeditate; but
whatsoever shall be given ... in that hour” (Mark 13:11) he shall be
able to speak.
I have confined myself to the _Form_,—a form which, though good, is
dead,—the _letter_ of the social code, which is at best a lifeless
thing, a burden, a barrier, often a cause of heart-burning jealousy,
wrath, anger, adulteries, and every sort of contention. There is nothing
so cruel as a quarrel carried on under the cloak of good form. The
bitter sarcasm of a war waged with polite words and phrases, the tones
keyed to simulate tenderness and love, as society requires, but
breathing of hate, makes a combination in which Satan is especially
manifested as in nothing else in the world. Truly the letter killeth.
The social code is all right, but, lacking the Spirit, it is a rotting
carcass. However, since it was modeled after Christ, it requires but
that the Holy Spirit shall breathe life into it to make it an instrument
for the accomplishment of necessary work in carrying the gospel to every
creature.
It is manifestly better to be filled with the Spirit than covered with
all the forms in the world; but _good form_, vitalized, will make any
messenger so ready for any good work in any field that he need take no
thought how or what he shall speak, for it shall be given him the same
hour. “For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which
speaketh in you.” Matt. 10:20.
XIII.
Even good form may be made too burdensome to be endured, and it is the
privilege of conscientious Christian society to strike the happy medium
between this oppressive formalism and the true kindly life which can
cause even the violation of all form to be almost unnoticed.
It is better to have the good life without the good form than to have
the good form without the good life; but it is our privilege, and duty
as well, to have both.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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