So then, here is the hope that you, girl, will start right, keep right,
and end right. I want you to think of sense, sentiment, and simplicity
rather than dances, dollars, duds and doings.
I want your life to be one of poise, happiness and serenity instead of
noise, worry and nerves.
This little message is all for you--GIRL.
30.
Many churches to-day are running to extremes in one way or another.
On the one hand, they are conducted along the lines of form, ceremony
and ritualism; the other extreme results in excitement, ecstasy and
fanaticism.
The church of forms, rituals and ceremonies attracts the passive who are
willing to let the priest or pastor or prelate take charge of the
religious work while they, the attendants or worshippers, sit quietly by
and say "amen" and join in the responses.
[Sidenote: Real Religion.]
Paul said, "Away with those forms." Christ, in ministering to humanity,
gave no forms and made no set sentences for his followers. The Lord's
Prayer was given with the admonition, "After this manner pray ye," and
certainly not with the command, "Pray ye with these words."
Form, ceremony and ritual are much like most associated charities--a
sort of convention. Forms cannot express the deep emotions, the natural
longings, or the human desires; they are echoes, hollow and
unsatisfying.
For those who do not feel, for those who do not act, for those who
belong to churches because of convention, or for social reasons, forms
and frills fill the bill.
Form is an exterior religion, an outward show. Form doesn't touch the
heart or awaken the soul. Form in religion is like a formal dinner. It
is a gaudy display rather than a plan to satisfy human heart hunger.
[Sidenote: "Scare-You-to-Death" Method.]
Opposite to formal religion is the frenzied "scare-you-to-death"
excitement method, which relies upon mental intoxication to stir the
people. Like other forms of intoxication, the effect soon wears off.
I have little patience or sympathy for the business men who hire
professional evangelists to come to town to start revivals. The
sensational revivalists have too acute an appreciation of the dollar to
convince me of their sincerity in their work.
A laborer is worthy of his hire, and a preacher, teacher or benefactor
of any sort should be well paid. But when I see these big guns taking
away from ten to one hundred thousand dollars in cold cash for a three
weeks' campaign converting the poor suffering people, the thought comes
to me that if the evangelist were sincere, he would buy a lot of bread,
coal and underwear, and hire a lot of trained nurses with a big part of
that money.
Christ and his Apostles were of the people; they worked with and among
the people; they had no committees, no guarantees and no business men's
subscription lists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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