CHURCH SOCIABLES | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, March 4, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 10

CHURCH SOCIABLES.

The Dubuque Telegraph gets after the church sociable in the following vigorous manner:—

As the winter season draws near, church sociables begin to blossom into new life. We had almost been uncharitable enough to observe that this fact might be regarded as a public calamity, but out of respect for the feelings of many good and well-meaning persons who are active in church sociable work, we refrain. Still, the fact is none the less apparent that this class of entertainments is now regarded by many as nuisances.

If the originators of church sociables intended them to degenerate into what they have, it would have been better for society and the churches had their originators died before their genius developed in that direction. But we have only to look backward a few years, and compare the church sociables of that time with those of the present day, to disabuse our minds of such a wrong and unjust impression as to the intentions of these supposed benefactors. The deplorable tendency of modern society to sacrifice comfort and good taste to conventionality and display, has made our church sociables the unpopular affairs they now are. Adding to this the desire on the part of churches to sap from the world's people every dollar possible, one need not be at a loss to discover in what manner this degeneration has been brought about.

At present a church sociable is synonymous with a money-catching affair. If it is not that, it is a stiff-backed, unenjoyable arrangement, better calculated to repulse the average person than to attract. The plan now indulged in of holding sociables at private houses, renders them unpopular. Many persons who would be pleased to go are kept away because their station in society will not admit of their attendance upon a sociable at a home of wealth and luxury, where they are often held. It may be sad, but none the less true, that a system of caste prevails among members of the same church, and while all may meet upon a common level in the church or at the sacramental altar, such a thing is considered impossible in the social world. People worship at a different shrine when out of church.

So the very persons who should receive whatever benefits may arise in a social sense from these entertainments, are debarred from them.

Then, again, the system of petty begging carried on at these sociables disgusts the majority of people. The amount asked for is not what is objected to, so much as the manner in which it is secured. One might as well pass the hat around at a private party. It could be done with about as much propriety.