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PRACTICAL QUESTIONS

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 6, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 1.

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PRACTICAL QUESTIONS.

By Editor

EVER since Moody and Sankey first commenced revival services in San Francisco about the middle of November, they have continued to draw the crowd. The exercises are ever varied, and the subjects handled in a thoroughly practical manner, so that one never loses his interest to attend. Occasionally, an entire meeting is devoted to answering questions, previously written and sent in. The following, taken from a report of such a meeting in a city paper, contains many sound practical hints, to which all would do well to give attention:—
Q. How shall we keep our children from desecrating the Sabbath?
A. First keep it holy ourselves, and then make it interesting to them. We have at our house what we call a Sunday scrap-book. We put all the pictures in it that we can get, and then set the children to finding texts to suit the pictures. Don't go out riding Sundays, and expect your children to stay at home or to go to Sunday-school. Spend the day with your children, and try to interest them in Bible stories and in good books.
Q. How shall a minister get his church to work?
A. Go to work himself, and then set one member to work with another. In this way both of them will be helped. Find out what every one can do best, and set him to doing it. In the parable Christ said, "To every man his work." We all have something to do for God—some special service. We are none of us converted to sleep, but all of us to work. The church is not a hospital. Some people complain that no one comes to see them. No one nurses and coddles them. Let such people go to see somebody else. Let them learn the luxury of working for the Lord, and they will stop thinking of themselves and complaining of others.
Q. Do you write your sermons?
A. If I did, I couldn't read them.
Q. How can I get my people to sing?
A. Sing yourself. I sing the best I can, though Sankey don't like my singing. If all will do that the church will be waked up. Methodism used Charles Wesley's hymns and sang its way half round the world. A cold church don't want to sing. It prefers to have a choir to sing for it. But the first impulse of a young convert is to sing. There can't be a revival in a church that don't sing. No one can praise God for me. I can't do it by proxy. At least half of the hymns at each service should be sung by the whole congregation. As a compromise, let the choir sing one or two hymns artistically. In Brooklyn a man testified last week that he was brought to the Saviour by the heart-felt singing of a lady who happened to sit near him.
Q. How shall we get people to the house of God?
A. Visit them, invite them, and then go yourself and bring them. Keep doing this, and they will come to get rid of you. Then, when they come, make it pleasant for them. Have pews for strangers, and let them be the best pews in the church. That is the way they do in Spurgeon's great church in London. Strangers there are made to feel that they are welcome. So it should be in all our churches.
Q. Should unbelievers lead in the praise of God?
A. No! how can they?
Q. What do you think of church fairs and suppers?
A. In the long run they injure the church. They grieve the spiritual portion of it. They lead to jealousies and heart-burnings. They bring in a worldly element. Ungodly men give fifty cents for a dinner that has cost forty cents, and then boast of their liberality to the church. We should set our faces against this whole business. Better trust in the Lord to provide for carrying on his work than to resort to such expedients.
Q. Should a minister attend funerals on the Sabbath?
A. Certainly; and preach the gospel as plainly as he knows how. He will reach people at funerals that never come to church, and so he has a grand opportunity. But don't pronounce eulogies at funerals. Preach the gospel.
Q. Is it right for a Christian to go to the theater?
A. A lady asked me this question once, and I told her that if she became a true Christian she could go to the theater whenever she wanted to. But when she was converted, she did not want to go. She had something better. If a man or woman is consecrated to God, there will be work for God all the while, and no time for going to the theater. I do not go because I have no desire to go, and no time to go. Let us give our hearts wholly to Christ, and this matter of amusements will regulate itself.
A question in regard to dancing was answered in the same way. A man in Scotland, who was a distiller, asked me to prove from the Bible that his business was wrong. I quoted to him the requirement to do all to the glory of God. I told him that if he could kneel down by each barrel of whisky, and ask God to make it a blessing to the world, then his business was right; but if he couldn't do that, then his business was wrong.
Q. How would you treat backsliders?
A. As the Master did. He looked on Peter. Don't go about reporting bad conduct, but go to the individual in a right spirit of love.
Q. Had children best go to church or Sabbath-school?
A. Go to both. I used to think it hard work; didn't understand the sermon, and hard seats in the gallery. My mother was poor; thought when I got away from home I wouldn't go; but I had the habit, and there was the drawing that way.
Q. Should we scold people for not coming to church and prayer-meetings?
A. Never make anything by scolding, and then the people that we think to scold are not there.
Q. Would you allow unconverted persons to teach in the Sabbath-school?
A. They wouldn't want to where I was. Blind can't lead the blind. If few teachers, double up the classes. God works through sanctified persons. But people may be seeking light who come to teach.
Q. Do collections prevent people from coming to church?
A. I don't think so. Let every one give as the Lord prospers him. Hundreds spend more for tobacco than they do for the church, also for whisky, and billiards, etc.
Q. Is it the duty of church members to attend the prayer-meeting?
A. Not the duty; don't like that word, but privilege, and should be the desire and joy.
Q. How would you get all to take part in the prayer-meeting?
A. I like an open meeting. Some, by taking part will kill the meeting; go to such privately, and get them to clear up their record. Some will talk and talk stale matter, old experience. I like to give out the subject in advance.
Q. Should the pastor always lead the prayer-meeting?
A. That depends upon how he leads it.
Q. Are teachers' meetings practicable in small towns?
A. Yes.
Q. How shall we get the Sunday-school children to study the lesson?
A. Study it yourself.
Q. How shall we get the children to attend regularly the Sunday-school?
A. Be regular yourself. Also, go and visit them often.