MOODY ON GRAB-BAGS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 10, 1881

MOODY ON GRAB-BAGS.

"And there are your grab-bags—your grab-bags! I tell you there is too much of this. Your fairs and your bazaars won't do, and your voting, your casting of ballots for the most popular man or the most popular woman, just helping along their vanity. I tell you it grieves the Spirit, it offends God. They've got so far now that for twenty-five cents young men can come in and kiss the handsomest woman in the room. Think of this! Look at the church lotteries going on in New York. Before God, I would rather preach in any barn, or in the most miserable hovel on earth, than within the walls of a church paid for in such a way. What is the use of going to a gambling den when you can have a game of grab with a lady for a partner? I tell you it's about time you stopped hiring ungodly men and ungodly women to sing in your church choirs just because they have a good voice. You smile. I tell you it's no smiling matter. You ought to blush with shame; that's what you ought to do. And there is such a thing as having an organist who gets drunk, and who can't play but he must go back every now and then and get a drink to refresh him."