Church Sociability

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 7, 1871

Church Sociability

SALEM, Oregon, has a Congregational Church, whose pastor, Rev. Mr. Knight, is a plain-spoken and courageous preacher. On last New-Year's day he told his flock that, while he believed in the system of family pews, he was strongly opposed to tacking any man's name on a church pew who is not a regular attendant. It was an unworthy advertising device. He held that “the back seats and the poorest ones should be reserved for the irregular and late comers, be they rich or poor.” He thought there should be more sociability among members, but was opposed to fairs and sociables costing visitors five, ten, or twenty dollars an evening. “There are but few in our church who have even a speaking acquaintance with all the members of it. Who among us cultivates acquaintances for Christ's sake? Here is a talent the Lord has given us to use for him. We have prostituted it to our questionable plans for raising money; we have hidden it in the napkin of selfishness, we have dressed it up in the gewgaws of fashion and restricted its exercise to our chosen circles; we have frittered it away in the silly chit-chat of the evening party; we have made it drunken in the giddy whirl of the brainless dance, and poisoned it with those grossest of modern abominations, midnight suppers.”—Christian Union.