p. 120 | Whose Worship? by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 11, 1877

Whose Worship?

By Uriah Smith

The following paragraph, which we clip from an exchange, tells its own sad tale:—

“The latest religious wrinkle in Toronto is the holding of ‘full-dress prayer-meetings,’ twice a week at the houses of the wealthier members of the St. James church. The guests come in full evening costume. For an hour the parlors are vocal with prayer and praise, after which cake and conversation are introduced. The meetings are said to be exceedingly genteel.”

We feel a little curiosity to know who or what is worshiped at these genteel gatherings. We take it that the poor are not admitted. The Master himself, we believe, never had the privilege of appearing in “full dress;” hence if he was here, as he was when upon earth, he could not come in. Is it the prayer-meeting that is the object of attraction? or is it to show the dress and eat the cake? How long does the eating continue after the meeting? And when with all their dress and gentility and cake and conversation, the scene is over, what has become of the influence of the prayer-meeting? Is there enough religion left to be visible to the naked eye? U. S.