Danger of becoming Worldly-Minded.
By D. T. Bourdeau
In this busy season, while farmers are engaged in harvesting, there is, with many, danger of becoming worldly-minded and neglecting the prayer and Sabbath meetings. They think they have so much to do that they cannot find time to attend the evening prayer-meetings; and when the Sabbath comes, they feel justified in resting at home. Some claim that they are too sick to be at the Sabbath meetings; but if you watch such, you will generally see them heartily and earnestly engaged at their secular work as soon as the sun has disappeared Saturday night. These things are not as they should be. They show that the mind has lost its balance between earth and Heaven, and that the world prevails. They manifest the true condition of the heart. Those who are so easily turned away from religious meetings, are the very ones who need them the most, and who should be the most faithful in attending them. It is when men and women have much to do that they need the divine aid that is obtained at religious meetings. Religion is not a hindrance in our secular matters, but a real help. They enable us to accomplish full as much in the long run, and to do what we do better, and with more ease and satisfaction. They lead us to seek for only that measure of worldly prosperity that will be most promotive of the glory of God and of our present and future well-being. How selfish it is to devote the Sabbath merely to animal rest, while it is designed to be a rest from our own work to be employed in the nobler work of our Creator. Those who do this do not sanctify the Sabbath unto the Lord, but use it in promoting their own secular interests. They crowd seven days' work into six, and rest the seventh that they may do the same the next week. They might as well divide up their work equally between the seven days of the week. They rob God of holy time. And this keeping away from meetings has a bad influence on weak brethren. You will hear them reason like this: There will be but few at the meeting, and it won't pay for me to go. This is very poor reasoning. It has the bad example of others for its leading premise. It would be wiser to reason thus: There will be but few present; hence the greater the importance of my attending to encourage and help by my presence and example when the wheel rolls hard. When brethren and sisters all absorbed in the things of this world, make out to attend meetings, they are in a poor condition to work for the Lord and delight themselves in his worship. They are not in their element. Their minds have been running in a worldly direction, and they cannot easily dwell upon heavenly things. They could talk fluently of their farms, their horses, their cattle, their butter and cheese, and their worldly prospects; but when they should speak for the Lord or engage in prayer, they are silent, or if they speak at all it is with coldness and barrenness of soul. They have no living experience. Their hearts are not in the work. How much better it would be to not hurry so much about earthly things, to think and talk more of Heaven and the preparation for Heaven while attending to our worldly interests, and to keep in a watchful and prayerful frame of mind, having different subjects of prayer before us growing out of our wants and the wants of others. Thus religion would be spiced in our worldly matters; we would enjoy the blessedness of our final home by anticipation and have, as it were, a Heaven on earth. We would long to meet with God in the assemblies of his saints, and our hearts would be tuned to worship him acceptably. Brethren and sisters, when the things of this world so engross our minds as to lessen our taste for prayer, reading the word of God, and attending religious meetings, then put it down that we have lost our balance and are backsliding. Then let us turn right about, relinquish our strong hold on the world, and turn our interests and energies in a heavenly direction.