WHY LATE TO CHURCH?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 32.

WHY LATE TO CHURCH?

It is thus that a late writer voices the sentiment of many, and answers the question, “Why is it that so many people are habitually late to church?”

“I think that I can answer for a considerable number. It is because the introductory services are so long and tiresome. For this reason whenever I attend certain churches alone, I make it a point to be late. A few weeks ago I arrived at one of the leading churches of the city three-quarters of an hour behind time and found the preliminary exercises still in progress. They continued ten minutes longer, making in all fifty-five minutes before the minister announced his text. His hearers were already weary and could not more than half appreciate the excellent sermon that followed. On Sunday, December 27, I attended the same church, but as two members of my family were with me, I was punctual. Preludes, interludes, solos, duets, and anthems, which were added to the regular hymns, protracted the musical exercises almost beyond the limits of patience. During the last fifteen or twenty minutes the strain on the congregation told visibly. There were frequent glances at watches, and the significant looks which persons here and there in the congregation cast at each other when they saw that another number was to be given, showed how wearisome the fiasco had become. The sermon began at 11:35 o’clock, after the service had already been in progress an hour and five minutes. This is why one person at least is habitually late to church. I believe that many others are late for the same reason. The churches are loading themselves with expense in an effort to rival one another in musical attractions, whereas they only render their services less inviting to no small number of their attendants. But the worst result, as it seems to me, is that these supernumerary exercises are pushing the sermon from the foreground and placing the preacher at a great

disadvantage, allowing him less time and obliging him to address a tired, often satiated, and sometimes half disgusted audience.”

The above is true. The writer attended a popular church recently to listen to a noted speaker, but from forty to fifty minutes were spent in prelatory music, prayers, and readings, and when the sermon began, the people were tired. Some lovers of this sort of thing may not believe this, but let them test it this way: Let the opening be confined to two songs, short Scripture lesson, and prayer; let the sermon follow, and give the rest of the ceremonial program after the sermon. How many would stay to hear it?