WHEN I first belonged to the larger Church, and for many years afterwards, the services were simple and Presbyterian. The Word of God was expounded and the gospel was faithfully
*The above is an extract from a pamphlet by the late Mr. J. Forbes Moncrieff, C.A., extracts of whose excellent pamphlets, etc., have often appeared in our pages. Mr. Moncrieff left the Free Church before 1893 and joined the United Original Secession Church. Since Mr. Moncrieff’s day there has been a tremendous land-slide in Scotland and the evils condemned have become rampant.—Editor.
proclaimed. The teaching was neither one-sided nor apologetic, as it so often is nowadays. The singing was led by a precentor, without the interference of an organ, and it never was heartier. There was a choir, it is true, but it was not needed, and then, as now, the members of it would, to my mind, have done better service if they had sat in their own pews. There were no attractions for worldly people. It was enough that we went to church to worship God.
But now a great change has taken place. A few congregations continue in the good old ways; but it is to be feared very few. Nowadays when a city congregation calls a minister one of the principal aims seems too often to be to get a man who will attract the crowd and get good collections. The desire with too many apparently is not so much for a godly and faithful man who will preach the gospel, as for a smart, shrewd, energetic man who will keep going all varied organisations which congregations have come to think necessary. In a word, they want a man who will, as the Americans say, “make things hum.”
Beginning with small things and slight innovations, the larger Presbyterian Churches have gone on from bad to worse, and there is no saying how much further they may go. To the introduction of organs can be traced many of the evils which have followed. Beginning with small harmoniums, the desire soon grew for more elaborate and expensive instruments, with much initial expense and heavy annual outlay for upkeep and for organists’ salaries. The use of these instruments was responsible for the employment of many organists and choirmasters who were musically efficient but spiritually quite unfitted to be engaged in any work connected with the Christian Church. This soon led to the introduction of all sorts of evils—voluntaries and much display of skill, the sacredness of the music being often of a very questionable character, anthems sung by choirs, and even solos during divine service. The fact is that gradually merely musical people in the churches became a law to themselves, and now do pretty much as they please, and ministers
and sessions, even where they have any desire to interfere, are in many cases, practically not allowed to do so.
So much being made of music in the churches (quite apart from true praise) it is not to be wondered at that, in an age when it is considered necessary to do so much “to please the young people,” what are called “Services of Praise,” which are really just concerts on the Lord’s Day, have become common. Some congregations actually employ paid singers, and still call themselves Presbyterian.
It is when we see how far astray music may lead people that the wisdom of our godly forefathers in resisting the beginnings of evil is seen, as well as the wisdom of those less popular Churches which have refused to yield to the general clamour for what, disguised by many fine sounding names, is simply a means of selfpleasing in connection with what should be a wholly God-pleasing service.
Even apart from those disgraceful cases where choirs and other bodies connected with churches indulge in dances, whist drives, dramatic and other worldly performances, how sad it is to see so many congregations countenancing all manner of more than questionable entertainments.
Those sweet singers who first introduced the singing of solos, etc., at religious services, and the various bodies of professing Christian people who have accustomed the present generation to the playing of bands and the sing-song music hall style of service, may perhaps have meant well, but a grave responsibility rests upon them.
There is such foolish and harmful talk about the plainness of church buildings, the “baldness” and dullness of services, the poverty of the music, the need for more “elasticity and brightness,” and so on. This might be expected from those who have no true appreciation of purely spiritual worship; but it is sometimes indulged in by those who ought to know better.
With many people the worship of God seems to be associated with what is sentimental or ceremonial. They must have comfortable, even luxurious churches, popular preachers, and all the
various self-pleasing adjuncts which are now looked upon as indispensable. It does not seem to occur to such that, the heart of man being deceitful, self-pleasing tends always to take the place of God-glorifying, and the temptation to yield to it requires to be constantly resisted.
The general wearing of university hoods of various colours may be considered a small matter, a mere conceit; but it is symptomatic, and is a very distinct departure from the simplicity which might be expected in a Presbyterian Church.
Perhaps a more serious matter is the evident hankering which so many seem to have after formalism in services and prayer. Some ministers go the length of reading prayers, while others, especially those of a certain cult, show by the studied style and elaborate wording of their prayers that this is of more importance to them than the free and simple outpouring of the heart to God, and many would almost seem studiously to avoid using the language of the Bible.
As to what might be looked upon as the larger principles of the churches, there is so much that is treated as an open question, so much regarding which the testimony of some of the Churches is vague and uncertain, and so much disposition to sacrifice principles for the sake of large combinations, that it does not seem that these have the same place as formerly.
While the testimony of some of the smaller Churches remains definite and distinct, that cannot be said of some of the larger Churches which have drifted far from their moorings. That may, to some extent, be due to their size; or rather to the large measure of encouragement they have given to those to enter their ministry and membership who sooner or later were bound to weaken their spiritual force. Hence perhaps the modern hankering after social and other less directly spiritual work.
The destructive criticism of the Bible, which in recent times has done so much to weaken the faith and paralyse the energies of both pastors and people, has not been exposed and denounced
in the larger Churches as it ought to have been, and many preachers have become very bold, encouraged possibly by the fact that the people seem to have neither the desire nor the ability to detect and oppose the preaching of erroneous doctrine.
Few things are more serious than the extent to which the ministers of the Churches have been influenced by this destructive criticism. Not many openly avow their agreement with these modern Jehoiakims, but it is feared there are not a few who hold erroneous views, though they are discreet enough to keep them to themselves. It is not only by what minister preaches that you can judge, but sometimes by what he does not preach. Some of the darker and sterner aspects of religion are seldom or never referred to in these days, when teaching about them is greatly needed; yet the people love to have it so, and no fault is found, as it is much more comfortable to hear only what pleases all.
In many quarters the necessity for “conversion” would appear to be doubted, if not denied, while the use of the word is strictly avoided. No distinction is made by many preachers between believers and unbelievers; and the consolations, promises and encouragements intended only for God’s people are offered freely to all indiscriminately. If the advice of some of our military chaplains is to be followed, it is to be feared that things will not be better, but rather worse, in the future. It is time that a protest was made against “the modern pulpit habit of throwing out suggestions of doubts, left-handed innuendo, against the authority of Holy Scripture.”
A writer says: “If an examination in Scriptural knowledge was conducted to-day amongst millions of Church members I firmly believe the result would be a perfect disgrace to a so-called Christian country.” Is it possible that this is true? There was a day, in Scotland at least, not so very long ago when erroneous doctrine, or one-sided doctrine, would have been detected and exposed by the people. Nowadays, however, the hearers are either unable to discriminate or unwilling to interfere, and so
things go on from bad to worse, and the state of matters grows more and more like that described and foretold by the prophets. Scarcely a word is heard from the more popular pulpits on the great evils of Popery and Ritualism, Sabbath-breaking, and other anti-Christian influences which threaten to be the death of true religion in our once favoured land.
It is noticeable that, with the lessening regard for the sanctity of the Sabbath, there has been an increasing desire among Presbyterians to keep other days, such as Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. It was not a good sign when, several years ago, the larger Presbyterian Churches abolished the Fast days. These days became largely just public holidays, and the Churches accepted the situation, and, with a few exceptions, abolished them—retaining only a short service preparatory to the Communion on a week-day evening and on Saturday afternoon. The latter is by some Churches now given up, and the thanksgiving service on the Monday following has in some cases been converted into a social meeting.
I believe that one cause of the demoralisation, or rather the despiritualisation, of the Churches has been the incessant stream of gossip about ministers and church doings in the semi-religious papers of the day, not to speak of the influence for evil of so many of the daily secular papers, which intrude their counsels and their criticism on things religious, so persistently and so baneefully.
The practice of advertising church services and preachers has become very common, and is found to be a convenience by those who go to hear this preacher or that, but much might be said against it.
By starting adjuncts and agencies of a more than questionable nature—or rather by not resisting and preventing the starting of such by individual members—the Churches have, it is to be feared, while greatly increasing their bustle and carnal activity, at the same time seriously injured their true life and spirituality.
All manner of things are now carried on in connection with the churches—social, musical, literary, athletic, military, etc., some of them entirely unsuitable to be connected with a professing Christian Church. The element of self-pleasing bulks largely in most of them. There are P.S.A.’s (Pleasant ‘Sunday’ Afternoons), P.S.E.’s (Pleasant ‘Sunday’ Evenings) and P.S.H.’s (Pleasant ‘Sunday’ Hours), lectures on poets, novelists, and all sorts of unsuitable subjects; Sabbath concerts and social hours, flower services, gift services, lantern services, harvest festivals, fancy fairs, dramatic recitals, kinderspiels, cantatas, entertainments more or less questionable, dances, clubs of various kinds, guilds, competitions, treats, reading-rooms with papers of a very mixed kind, Sabbath supper parties and smokes, etc., etc. Things are not yet quite so bad as they are in America, but they are bad enough.
No doubt a good deal can be said, in the way of special pleading, by their advocates on behalf of the multifarious and various agencies of the modern Church, but I cannot help feeling that they have done much to invite and utilise the help as “Christian workers” of a “mixed multitude,” who, to say the least of it, chill the spiritual atmosphere. There are those in the present day who advocate the giving of Christian work to young people and others who are not members of the Church, with the view of interesting them in and inducing them to join the Church. This I consider is putting things in the wrong order, and does a serious injury not only to the Church, but also to the persons themselves, who may be fatally misled. There is also a good deal said about the loneliness of young men and women in lodgings. I know well from experience what that means, and can testify that the loneliness is most useful. So far from it being necessary for the Church to put itself about unduly to provide social functions and such like to entertain the lonely lodgers on the Sabbath day, she would do well to recognise the fact that one of the great needs of the young people of to-day is just more time to be alone.
I may not live to see it, but there may yet come a great spiritual awakening, when God’s people in the various Churches will realise the evil of a formal and sensuous service, and will insist upon returning to the simpler and purer worship of their godly ancestors. When this happens perhaps the small but faithful Churches will be remembered. The sins of the past must be thoroughly and sufficiently repented of, before God’s blessing can be expected on this sport-and pleasure-mad generation.
The delusion entertained by many is that, by the introduction of novelties and innovations, the Churches are progressing; whereas true progress towards God will only be made when they, in humility, confession of guilt and penitance, go back to the Scripture, back to the Sanctuary, back to the Sabbath, back to the Saviour.