FAIRS, FESTIVALS, FAILURES.
By Editor
THE following "open letter" is from the Evangelical Messenger, Cleveland, Ohio. It is suggestive, and the "Dominie" of every fashionable, fair-holding church, will do well to lay it to heart:— "Dear Dominie:—I am surprised that you should have yielded your old-fashioned principles so far as to give your consent to a fair and festival in your church; and I am not at all surprised that you should ask my opinion about it. I think your request betrays the uneasy feelings of a man who has gone contrary to his better judgment. I am sure you will not get any comfort or spiritual benefit out of the affair, however much money you may gain by it; and I know you do not expect it, either. You have made a mistake—perhaps you have committed a crime. "What is the matter with your church? Whence comes the necessity or occasion to hold a fair and festival for its 'benefit?' Are you becoming extravagant in expenditures, or proud, or covetous of finer fixtures? Have you been making debts—putting a saddle on your backs for the debt-devil to ride you to death? Or, have your people ceased to do their duty in supporting the Lord's cause? Have they lost the spirit of liberality which belongs to those whom the Lord has enriched with infinite treasures? "If any of the above reasons for a fair exist in your church, then I would suggest that a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer be appointed in its place. You need more religion in your church, instead of more money. A church can exist and do blessed, heroic service for Christ, without money, if need be; but it can afford to go hob-nobbing with the world, and crawl like a beggar at the feet of the mocking Mammon, for the sake of getting a few unsanctified dollars. Dominie! you ought to be ashamed! You ought to have manhood enough, if you have not enough religious principle and holy pride, to keep you from stooping to the modes and maxims of worldliness. The very worldlings to whom you surrender will despise you in their hearts for your weakness. "You want to know whether there may not be circumstances that would justify the modern measures employed to raise money in churches? I cannot imagine a case like that. Suppose a case: A church is in debt, or must make some improvements, or must meet some urgent financial demand, and has no money. The alternative is to hold a fair and festival, or break up a Christian society and lose a church. I say, Dominie, let the church go! When the walls of a church have once become so weak that you must coax the world to help you hold them up, it is time to let them tumble down! When oysters, and ice cream, and grab bags, and tricks, and stratagems must be substituted for the old-fashioned Christian grace of benevolence, in order to get money to 'support the Gospel' (!), it is time to go and seek for the old landmarks of Christianity. The Gospel does not need any such support. It is not so, contemptibly weak as that. As sure as you live, Dominie, the Gospel is 'the power of God unto salvation!' Talk of 'supporting' the Gospel, or a minister of Jesus Christ, with the proceeds of fairs and festivals! "Have you ever known a church fair to advance the spiritual interests of a society, or to promote piety in any of its participants? Have you ever known any real, substantial, permanent gain to result to the church therefrom? Are not all the facts against the institution? Do you expect to fare any better than others? Do you hope to be made an exception to a rule which has never allowed one? "I like the spirit of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, as manifested in a recent case. It is one of their principles not to accept money for sacred uses from unclean hands. They decline to take for God, and his agent or minister, money that, as far as they can see, has not been honestly made. A Scotch writer says that when the late great Glasgow Bank failure took place there, some of the directors were members of the United Presbyterian congregations of the city, and one or more of them were large givers—almost the support of their particular churches. When, by the judgment of the civil courts, they were declared to have been guilty of systematic fraud for some years back, their liberal donations were all returned to them, although it more than crippled the congregations who did it. This fact was told, not by any of themselves, but by a learned clergyman of the Established Church of Scotland, who bore honorable testimony to their devotion to principle, and their own profession. All honor to those sturdy Scots. On the same principle the proceeds of 'sanctified' lotteries and feasts, from the tables of the 'money changers' in the Lord's house, would be sent back to the hands from whence it came, as unfit for holy service. "If now we leave out of account the spiritual interest of the church, and consider the ordinary fair and festival from a financial standpoint, we find nothing in its favor. The money value of the sum total of labor, care, vexation, and expense usually required to prepare and carry on a church fair is generally greater than the proceeds realized. Besides this, the fair is an obstruction in the ordinary, God-approved channels of benevolence, and interrupts the flow of means into the Lord's treasury. Here too, the church suffers loss. With the same amount of labor and care and determination employed in managing a fair, as much or more money could be secured in proper ways. "Can church members afford to spend time and thought and labor on fairs, while all their energies are needed in religious work? Can they afford to let the spiritual interests of the church suffer for want of the thought and effort which they devote to the fair? And what of the harmony and union and good fellowship which the fair is claimed to promote? Where are the facts? Where are the outsiders who have been drawn into the church and converted, in consequence of the attractions of a fair? I have not found them, to this day. Have you, Dominie? "There is a more excellent way of providing means for the cause of Christ. Why not use the best way? Fraternally.