If these statements are true, we have a sufficient answer to the question so often asked: "Why do not people go to church as they once did?" They do not go because they have lost their faith in churches and worship,—at least such have as are appealed to from those holding liberal and reasonable views. There are no doubt men who consider the too often expensive ways in which churches are supported as altogether beyond their means. The demands of civilization upon individuals in these restless times, when there are so many organizations, secret, secular, and religious, are indeed too great for small incomes, especially as the cost of food is continually increasing, and as society in other ways makes so many secular demands upon them. Public worship is after all, in the view of many persons, not a necessity, but only a luxury which can easily be dispensed with. It might perhaps have been better for the whole community if churches had undertaken to do the work which is now in the hands of many charitable and secret societies; then those who take so much interest in these outside, often expensive, organizations would have had all their interest in the churches. But the latter were for years so divided on doctrines of belief that their whole attention has for the most part been directed to other matters than their legitimate work, which has thus been thrown into the hands of outside agencies. In these times it seems difficult to maintain religious societies except where the element of fear is dominant in the creed, where some remarkable preacher takes the attention, or where the ritual or fashion attracts. Do not the papers often speak of "fashionable" churches?
One thing which prevents many people from attending public worship on Sunday is the increasing tendency towards ritualism,—or perhaps, we should say, making the services less instructive than formerly, and more devotional or emotional. This is seen not only in the Episcopal Church, but also among many other denominations. Even Congregational Orthodox—descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers—introduce prayer-books and responsive services, and make their church buildings more ecclesiastical in appearance, to look as much as possible like Episcopal churches. All these things to many minds are not edifying, to say the least, and consequently such persons absent themselves from service. Those too who are impressed by emotional religion join the Episcopalians, so that for the time there is an apparent increase in the attendance at the Episcopal churches, gained from churches of other denominations; and especially too as fashion decrees nowadays that "it is the proper thing to do" to go to the Episcopal Church, whether you believe in its doctrines or not. So that at length there are a great many people who think when church-going gets to be a matter of fashion, there is quite as much real religion to be found outside as inside the church; consequently they lose their interest. All these causes must be taken together; of course no one thing alone accounts for the change in regard to church attendance.
We quote the following remarks from a recent English paper ("The Unitarian Herald"); they have a direct bearing on our subject, and are worthy of consideration by those who neglect public worship or favor a more secular Sunday. Among other things, the speaker (the Rev. John Page Hopps) says:
"So far as we can see, the old orthodox believers were right when they called public worship 'a means of grace;' and if human experience is of any value, it is an undoubted fact that a great multitude which no man could number have felt the grace-giving influence of it. It is as true as ever that man cannot 'live by bread alone,' but that he needs also the 'word that proceedeth from the mouth of God;' and if it is true, as we believe, that the word of God does come home with special force and pathos when worship is joined in by kindred souls, the argument for public worship, from this point of view, seems complete. And yet, half in jest and half in earnest, and sometimes altogether in earnest, we hear it said that a man can worship God in the fields quite as well as in the church. 'Perhaps he can,' said a wise man once, 'but does he?' I wonder whether we shall go on in this direction until we hear it said that a man can worship God playing at lawn-tennis as in attending public worship? Thus there may actually come into existence a cant of the absentee which shall be as really cant as the cant of the devotee; for the use of the word 'worship' in such instances is a glaring case of exaggeration tinged with self-deception, which is the very essence of cant. Besides, one of the surest notes of the worshipping spirit is an increase of sympathy and love,—sympathy that suggests fellowship, and love that suggests anything but selfish isolation.
"The irregularity also of attendance upon public worship might be cited as an instance of neglect or levity which 'personal consecration' alone can cure. In days gone by, attendance upon public worship was a habit, and nothing that could be avoided was allowed to interfere with it. Twice on the Sunday, too, was the rule, and not, as now, the decided exception. But with many it is now becoming once every other Sunday, or scarcely that; with so little of 'personal consecration' in the matter that the need for an umbrella may decide the doubter not to go.
"Do we not, again, listen too much merely for delight? and does not the question, 'How did you like the sermon,' or 'How did you like the service,' indicate that we join in the service and listen to a sermon in an entirely wrong spirit? The critical or self-regarding spirit has its uses, but it may be fatal to 'personal consecration' in public worship. How often does an entire service depend upon our own temper, our own mood, our own spirit? And how often is it true that a congregation has as much to do with the making of a minister as the minister has to do with the making of a congregation?
"'If I neglect public worship, then,' a man should say to himself, 'the community is injured, the brotherhood is weakened, the young are confused. It is a grave responsibility.'
"But now we must not shrink from the question: How far or how long ought these considerations to hold the man who has lost delight in public worship or faith in that to which it bears witness? When should doubt make worship impossible, or unbelief make worship wrong for the honest soul? When should 'personal consecration' say to a man, not stay, but depart? It is a grave question, and every one must shape his answer for himself. All I would say is: Give worship the benefit of the doubt: ay! give fellow-worshippers the benefit of the doubt. Continue with them as long as you can; if not as a full believer, then as a devout inquirer, a gentle seeker, a sympathetic friend. Why not? That is possible with us; for the very bond of our union is sympathetic regard for one another's freedom. It is also specially possible with us because our teachings do not, at all events, outrage the reason and shock the moral sense. Even an agnostic might listen to us and hope that our Gospel is true.
"Special dangers call for special safeguards, special consideration, special wariness. It is an age of splendid advance in science, of restless energy in business, of stupendous activity in politics, of daring questioning everywhere. All that makes against public worship; and yet all that makes public worship a greater necessity and demonstrates 'the pressing need of personal consecration' to it. God only knows what we should do without it and the blessed Sunday!
"'Dear old commemorative day,
For weary man designed
To help him on life's troubled way,
To give his spirit freer play,
To soothe his harassed mind!