An Expensive Luxury

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 30, 1867

An Expensive Luxury.

We see it stated in the papers that a pew in King's Chapel, Boston, was sold recently for $5,400. One must have an ample income to be able to worship God in that church! If the gospel is preached there, it certainly cannot be preached to the poor, for they are without the means to purchase the right to admission. If Christ would have those “who labor and are heavy laden” come unto him, he certainly cannot be found in a church where these are practically excluded. Shut the poor out and you shut Jesus out. These magnificent churches, with their costly seats, may afford an inviting place for the display of pride and fashion once a week; but for the promotion of the plain self-denying religion of the Bible, they are worse than useless. They corrupt more than they convert. They build up pride and religious aristocracy more than they edify the body of Christ. They send the masses away to spend their Sabbaths in the haunts of pleasure and vice, and predispose them to lend a favoring ear to the teachings of the subtle infidelity of the age. The gospel demands that the churches should be free. To sell or rent the pews is an abrogation of the right of the poor to hear the gospel preached. We could no more help sustain a pewed church than we could a lottery, or a gambling saloon. The traffic in pews is a plant that God never planted. It has no countenance in the word of God. It is based upon pride and covetousness. It is utterly repudiated by the gospel of Christ. Let us help root up the Antichristian system.