Late at Meeting | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 15, 1875

Late at Meeting.

A BAD practice of coming late to divine service prevails more or less in some congregations. It is a practice that ought to be abandoned. It is attended with evil consequences. It disturbs the minds of devout worshipers who do not indulge in it. It distracts the attention of persons previously assembled from the solemnities in which they are engaged. It tends to cause the services of the sanctuary to be held in low repute. It promotes the spread of lax views as to the proper nature of public worship. It seems to suggest a performance to be witnessed rather than a solemn exercise to be participated in; or a recreation to be enjoyed in whole, or in part, as inclination may dictate, rather than a duty which men are under a strong obligation faithfully to perform. Its effects upon the mind of those who habitually indulge in it must be detrimental. It is incompatible with the cultivation of that devoutness of thought and feeling in the absence of which worship in any form is but a profitless exercise.

Where it does not spring from want of punctuality, promptitude, and forethought, it is probably mostly caused by utterly inadequate views of the true character of the service of the sanctuary, which we are required to render to the Most High. It is to be feared that such views obtain to an extent truly lamentable, even among Christians of an average degree of piety. Much would be accomplished in the way of rectifying such views, were all accustomed to attend divine worship punctual in their attendance, and earnest in their endeavor to derive the largest possible degree of benefit from the use of this precious means of grace.—Sel.