ST. PAUL tells us that in the last days perilous times shall come. Conspicuous among these perils he enumerates a formal, powerless religion, "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." Are these perilous times upon us? We can approximate an answer to this question only by setting face to face a godliness in form and a godliness in power. Each has features and fruits peculiarly its own.
What, then, is religious formalism in the church? It is to have a creed, and never really believe it, at least never so believe it as to get any spiritual nourishment from it. It is to have a covenant, and to hear it read once in two months—that is the last and the whole of it; living up to it is out of account. It is to pledge love and fidelity to each other as brethren, and then bite and devour one another. It is to profess all confidence in the cross of Christ as the power and wisdom of God, and then demand that every thing else be preached but Christ and him crucified. It is to descant on the importance of prayer, and then leave others to do the praying. It is to appoint the weekly prayer-meeting, and then seldom or never attend it; or to call it a social prayer-meeting, and never lift a voice or finger to make it social. It is to covenant to have family worship morning and evening, and then to have it occasionally, when the world's business is not crowding too hard. It is to put a minister in the pulpit, and then go to be entertained with his wit, rhetoric and flashes of oratory. It is to set pastors over the churches, and to profess great love for them, and then to reduce them to penury or starvation. It is to build splendid churches, put into them a costly organ and a charming quartette, and then expect these will do the work of home evangelization. It is to discourse charmingly of the service of song in the house of the Lord, and then hire strange men and women to do the singing. It is to boast of our religious progress, while confessedly the proportion of church-going people is less and less every year. It is to glory over our religious organizations—our Missionary, Tract, and Bible Societies—and then calculate they are going to move themselves—a sort of self-running machine to convert the world. It is to write prize essays and exhort on the duty of beneficence, and then scowl when a contribution is named. It is to extol our Christian charities, and then average annually a sixpence apiece, all told.