It is not an uncommon thing for people to attend some particular church because it promises to be socially advantageous to them. It is fashionable in a particular town. I have a friend, I still call him friend, a Boston lawyer, who told me in conversation about this subject one day that he deliberately went to the largest church he could find, and that, if in the particular city in which he was residing the Roman Catholic Church was in the majority, he should attend that. There are thousands of persons who wish to be in the swim, and who are diverted this way or that by what seems to them socially profitable. Think of it, claiming to be followers of the Nazarene, who was outcast, spit upon, treated with contempt, on whom the scribes and Pharisees of his day looked down with bitterness and scorn, and who led the world for the sake of his love for God out into a larger truth, who made himself of no reputation, claim to be followers of him, and let a matter of fashion decide whether they will go this way or walk in some other path I Think of the irony of a situation like that! Then, again, there are those who attach themselves to some one church rather than to another because, after looking over the ground, they made up their minds that it would be to their business advantage. They will become associated with a set of people who can help them on in the world. It is all very well, if there be no higher consideration, for a person to be governed in his action by motives like these; but is it quite right to decide a question of truth or falsehood, of God or duty, of the consecration of the human soul, of the service of one's fellow- men, on the basis of supposed financial advantage? There is hardly a year goes by that persons do not come to me, considering the question as to whether they will attend my church. I can see in a few minutes' conversation with them that they have some purpose to gain. They wish to be helped on in the prosecution of some scheme for their own advancement. If they succeed, they are devout Unitarians and loyal followers of mine. If not, within a few weeks I hear of them as devoted attendants somewhere else, where they have been able to make their personal plans a success.