THE CHURCHES OF TO-DAY.
By Arthur T. Pierson
THE church is largely leavened with the world, adopts worldly maxims, and robes the gospel in worldly charms, seeking by making it attractive to make it effective. The pulpit sometimes becomes a platform for lectures more fit for the lyceum, and sometimes a stage for dramatic acting more fit for the theater! The service of sacred song is turned into a display of art, in which an appeal to aesthetic taste takes the place of the divine savor and flavor of worship. In His house, where “the Lord alone shall be exalted,” classical music is exalted, pagans and papists are hired to lead us in praise; or a profane, drunken organist sometimes uses the keys of the grandest of instruments to play out the congregation, and play out the impression of the gospel. We build Gothic cathedrals, furnish them with crimson and gold, adorn them with the pencil and chisel of art; then we have concerts and lectures, fairs and festivals, entertainments and excursions; and we say, “surely we shall draw the people to the house of God.” But they do not come. The writer went to a splendid church, on the Pacific Coast, where a silver-tongued preacher had his throne, and a choir of artists warbled music; there were seven performances by organ and quartette, and then a grand oration, but the church was more than half empty. If we mean to draw souls to God’s house, let it be by proper charms of a pure gospel, simple and soul-satisfying; by praise full of devotion, and prayer full of devoutness; by that atmosphere, which is peculiar to the assembly of true worshipers. Secular attractions, even while their power lasts, make the cross of none effect; they turn the mind from the things of Christ. Even when they draw, it is in the same direction as the world does! If the church would attract worldly souls, she must offer them what the world does not and cannot—solid, substantial satisfaction, draughts of living water from a divine fountain, and not stagnant water from a broken cistern. Quench the thirst of souls and they will come.—Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D. D., in the Christian Statesman.