IV. THE LAITY.
The laity lack much consecration. The things of this world and the desire for them press more heavily upon their minds than the extension of God’s cause. Their Christian consciousness is not trained, hence their sense of duty is not high. They depend too much on spasms of effort and frequent appeals to the emotions in the performance of duty. Their idea of the gospel is too confined to hearing sermons on Sunday. Their gospel does not touch the many interests of life. Their virtues are not concrete. Holiness, purity, love, truth, beauty, justice, goodness are metaphysical abstractions. Too much self-centred and self-seeking, they make little or no sacrifice for others. Many self-supporting churches do not shelter weaker ones and have no thought for the heathen. There are churches that are fortunate in having in their official boards men of culture, piety, and business experience, but these are virtues very rarely found in the same men. Business methods are often low in churches because of the difficulty of finding strictly business men among the laity. In the erection of churches the spirit of ostentation rather than worship is dominant. The immorality of debt not being known, churches are very often built without regard to the financial inability of the people, and deceive by suggesting rich parishioners when the people are very poor and live from hand to mouth. Many disruptions between pastors and churches could have been avoided were church finances not kept in a confused state. Pastor’s salaries and other church obligations are not raised and met in a systematic way, but are left to appeals to the feelings of the people whose ethical sense has not been cultivated. We have thus enumerated among the defects of the laity, worldliness, untrained Christian consciousness, restricted meaning of the gospel, the non-concreteness of the Christian virtues, and the lack of a missionary spirit and of business methods.