p. 70 | WHAT IS BETTER THAN RELIGION?

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 29, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 5

WHAT IS BETTER THAN RELIGION?

WE are happy to present the following racy testimony against the modern follies of popular churches and Sunday-schools, from the Sunday-School Times of Jan. 17, 1880. But who can tell us why it is that when men of high position, and leading papers which are supposed to exert a controlling influence, speak so pointedly against these recent fairs, festivals, and theatrical performances, they are all the time increasing with such great rapidity? Is it not because the masses have broken away from all restraint, so that the few who see the evil and would check it, find the movement beyond their control?

If we are not mistaken, this has been an exceptionally good winter, so far, for Sunday-school theatricals, with no lack of the ordinary church fairs and festivals. For years it has been a common thing to open a Christmas celebration at a Sunday-school room with solemn exercises of worship, and then to introduce a dressed up “Santa Claus” for the distribution of presents to the children, as if to impress the young with the idea that “every good and perfect gift”—which Christmas symbolizes—cometh down the chimney from old “St. Nicholas.” But this year there is a demand for more of the “moral drama” in the Sunday-school than a single actor can supply. So there have been Christmas dramas and Christmas cantatas published and acted in great variety.

Here, for example, is a scene for a Sunday-school stage, from a “cantata” which is said to have “been most warmly commended by prominent clergymen on every side:” “A bed-room. Fritz, Carl, Lena, and Gretchen are seen dressed for bed, and with attendants, hanging up their stockings. After kneeling and singing their evening prayer, they retire to bed. Shortly after, the Goddess of Dreams, unseen by them, slowly enters, and approaches the bed; waving her wand over the children, she quickly puts them to sleep, during which time she is softly singing her lullaby.” There are four other goddesses in this drama, besides other divinities and attendant fairies. If the drama is to be counted a legitimate method of teaching truth, the old “passion play” of Ober-Ammergau certainly

has advantages over the modern Sunday-school stage with its incongruous mixing of Christian and mythological teachings. A Southern newspaper describing the performance of the bed-room scene in the new cantata, says, “One of the little ones fell out of bed, being awhile in the sheet amid the most innocent smile on her own face, and screams of laughter and joy from the audience. We cannot but congratulate the great school on its success.”

Another of these dramatic Sunday-school entertainments is described by a Canadian paper as opening “with a series of pantomime exercises,” followed by a “recitation of a collect from the church service,” and a Moody and Sankey hymn. The new year, “1880,” was represented by a little girl brought in in a cradle, while the boy who acted as the “new papa,” played his part so well that, “to use the hearty expression of one of the audience, he was ‘immense.’” “Flo. Kemp looked a sweet ‘Little Buttercup,’ and sang very prettily; and the two little sailors, who gazed so fixedly at her, made her arch solicitations to buy of her good things more effective.” This is in substance the story as it comes up from far and near of the popularity of the Sunday-school drama of to-day. That the attractions of this sort of entertainment are very different from those of ordinary Sunday-school exercises, cannot be denied. As to the legitimacy and desirableness of popularizing the Sunday-school in this way, there is a difference of opinion.

But it is not fair to ascribe the blame of such performances as these—or to give the credit for them, if you prefer that way of putting it—to the Sunday-school as apart from the church. Sunday-school theatricals are only an adaptation of the church-fair and church-bazaar idea. Here, for an illustration, is the programme of a bazaar recently held in one of our Western cities for the benefit of one of the principal evangelical churches of that city: “Monday: Grand Promenade Concert. Tuesday: Dramatic representation, ‘Happy Pair.’ Wednesday: Fancy Dress Concert. Thursday: Stereopticon Views. Friday: Dramatic Representation, ‘Lend me Five Shillings.’ Saturday: Dance, after which a superb basket of flowers will be awarded to the most popular young lady present.” One of the best known evangelists of America says, that soon after a series of meetings held by him in an Eastern city, a church which had been revived thereby arranged for “a day of fasting and prayer,” to be followed the next evening by “an old-fashioned spelling-down, corn-shelling, etc.” And he told of another place where, at a church fair, an attractive young lady offered herself to be kissed “at twenty-five cents a head,” “for the benefit of the church.” With the changes that have been rung on the church-fair and the church-bazaar plan for the raising of money for religious purposes, it is not to be wondered at that the Sunday-schools are induced to try their hands at something more taking than regular religious services.

The chief moral objection to all these plans—for raising money by church fairs and church bazaars, or for entertaining the Sunday-schools with theatrical performances—is, that they attempt the substitution of a lower form of attractions for a higher one; that they try to please the eye and tickle the ear, instead of arousing the mind and impressing the heart. And a principal practical difficulty in the way of their working is, that they can be successfully competed with outside of the church, and in hostility to church interests. If theatrical performances are desirable, the theaters can beat the Sunday-schools on every trial to meet this want; and as a rule their “moral dramas” are an improvement—judged by a literary or ethical standard—on the average Sunday-school play. And if young men are looking for an opportunity to vote for or to kiss pretty girls, they will hardly confine their visits to church fairs. Concert saloons will prove more than a match for church bazaars, with the same weapons. In fact, with the world as it is, the devil has an advantage over the church on every other score than that of pure and undefiled religion. There is where the church has its stronghold. “I tell you,” said a godly minister, “in the long run there is nothing that keeps up a church like piety.” It is the same with the Sunday-school as with every other department of the church. Those Sunday-schools which give chief prominence to religious truth and to religious training in all their exercises, gain most and best hold their gains, in a series of years. A Sunday-school where the children worship and offer gifts to the Lord at their Christmas services, instead of receiving presents and watching a poor play at their holiday gathering, has a life and attractiveness to it which are not to be secured in any other way.

Moreover, there is no so effective plea for gifts to the Lord’s cause as the Lord’s claim. When the church as the body of Christ appeals for aid in the name of its Head, all who are truly the Lord’s have the strongest possible inducement to respond as God has prospered them. Even those who are not the Lord’s are more likely to give at that call, wisely pressed, than they are to pay twice what a thing is worth at a church fair, on the score of benevolence. And in the one case they honor the church for its manly appeal to them, while in the other case they are tempted to despise it for its roundabout way of doing its proper work. If this be not so, why not try the coaxing method, the bartering method, the refreshment method, in all church collections? “And now, brethren, let us get up a supper, and eat ourselves rich,” said a witty Presbyterian elder, in keen satire on the church-fair plan, when his church was proposing indirect methods of raising the money for new and necessary expenditures. “Buy your food,” he said. “Then give it to the church. Then go buy it back again. Then eat it up, and your church debt is paid.” If that is the best way of getting all hands to contribute to a good cause, by all means let it be introduced into the churches for every Sunday service. Just think of it! The deacons or vestrymen passing around the boxes on Sunday morning, at the same time they offer to serve refreshments to all who give liberally. The pastor at his desk repeats appropriate sentences meantime. For example: Pastor: “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” Deacon (reaching out the contribution-box to a stranger in the congregation): “A plate of ice-cream goes to every person who contributes twenty-five cents or more. Can you help us this morning?” Pastor: “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth.” Deacon (to the father of a family): “A bag of peanuts goes to each child who contributes not less than five cents. Lemonade to the father. Let all take hold to-day. We need the money.” That is the church-fair idea! If it works well in one place, why not in another? If it is the way of promoting God’s cause week-day evenings, why not make it available for the same cause Sundays?

Can there be any doubt as to the folly of this double-faced, indirect method of trying to raise money for the Lord’s cause, in contrast with the straight-forward, honest appeal to men to give of their substance to Him on whom they depend for all things? Why, one dead-in-earnest Christian man has raised more money for the payment of church debts by the appeal for Christ’s sake within the past two years than has meantime been netted by all the church fairs and bazaars in all the land! And one dollar given to the Lord out of a loving heart which in this way shows gratitude to him, is worth more to any church than a hundred dollars received for votes or kisses for “the most popular young lady” on exhibition in its bazaar. In short, of all the agencies to be depended on for the support of a church, or the attractiveness of a Sunday-school, there is nothing better than religion.