destiny. Faith begins thus, and thus commonly it springs up towards perfection. It is they only “that be planted in the house of the Lord” that “shall flourish like the palm-tree,” that “shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” The most eminent servants of God in every age have understood this. Their language has been, like that of David—”One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.”
There is, however, a class of persons in our religious congregations—some of them even within the pale of the membership of the Church—whose temper is obviously of quite an opposite sort. The terms of my statement intimate that they do not utterly forsake the sanctuary; nay, they ordinarily suffer no Sabbath to pass without resorting to it. But their thirst for its privileges seems to be easily slaked; a single service is apt to suffice. They may be properly characterised as half-day hearers. Their goodness is too literally “as a morning cloud and as the early dew,” or vice versa. In respect to either the afternoon or the morning service, they do but illustrate, negatively, the precept of our text. It is of these HALF-DAY HEARERS I propose to discourse.
Yet let me not be supposed to speak without discrimination. Far be it from me to ignore providential hinderances. There are aged persons whose infirmity makes even a single visit to the house of God a great Sabbath labour. Persons of all classes are liable to assaults of disease. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that attacks of this sort should happen so often upon the Sabbath. How are we to account for these hebdomadal visitations? To what occult influence shall we ascribe it, that just as holy time begins, cruel rheumatisms tighten their grasp and hoarse colds clog the channels of respiration and crushing headaches settle down upon the brain? Can it be that the god of this world has still some partial power over the bodies of men, and, by a natural exercise of his malignity, makes this the time of his sorest inflictions? Or is the cause to be found in some hidden physical force, some mysterious working of the law of periodicity? If the inquiry is to take this direction, it may well call into exercise the keenest sagacity of the medical faculty. Nor should they overlook the question, to what peculiar atmospheric or other influence it is owing, that a malady, neglected during the week, is found to be most advantageously treated on the Sabbath Day—that just that day is discovered to be most favourable to the operations of the pills or powders, the tinctures or decoctions, which a particular care is judged to require. We cannot but suspect, however, that the cause sought for lies below the sphere of merely physical agencies; its seat, we fear, is in the province of the spiritual. Yet there are visitations of disease, we know, neither fancied nor welcomed, which must needs keep their subjects from the sanctuary. Some, too, must attend upon the sick, and others must watch over helpless infancy. We utter, in regard to this subject, no sweeping condemnation; nay, we are slow to judge of particular cases;
we would ever exercise, in regard to them, that charity which “thinketh no evil,” and which “hopeth all things.” We would be guilty of no rude or impertinent meddling with men’s private affairs; least of all would we trench upon the rights which pertain in this matter to the individual conscience. We speak not of those whose justification is in the limitations of Providence, or in the imperative claims of duty. Let none who on such grounds stand absolved from censure regard this discourse as intended for them: it touches the case of those only who err in heart, who are defaulters from the lack, not of good opportunities, but of right affections. We pass, then, to present, in various aspects, the case of him who, both in heart and habit, merits the appellation of a half-day hearer.
I. The half-day hearer incurs great loss.
The loss is all the greater from the fact that the course he takes is quite in accordance with his inclinations. He who is reluctantly detained from the house of God is, indeed, deprived of a most valuable privilege; yet if his heart be there, He whose service he delights in will not leave him unblessed. Partial amends, at least, may be made, in the joys and advantages of private devotion, and in his fervent communion in spirit with the assembled worshippers. No such compensation has the man who is willingly absent from the ministration of the Word. Rather than curtail the means of grace, he should give them enlargement. Instead of half a Sabbath a week, he needs the sunshine of two Sabbaths, to warm his frozen heart, to tempt upward the drooping pinions of his faith. Little enough for anyone are all the ordinary services of holy time. It is a long eternity, filled with momentous scenes, for which the Sabbath is a preparation. A fearful host of outward enemies have we to contend with—a still more terrible array of inward foes. Often, then, should we resort to that great spiritual armoury, the sanctuary. If the half-day hearer is an unconverted man, our argument assumes a special urgency. In the simple language of one who was always in his place in Church, he knows not “when the saving word will be preached.” The very sermon he fails to hear may be just that which was particularly suited to his case, which might have removed, under God, the only remaining barrier to his conversion. God dispenses His Spirit as a Sovereign, it is true; but not without regard to the relations and fitnesses of things. Much depends, too, in impressing the heart, upon the repetition of influences—upon keeping the truth continuously before the mind. There must be a succession of drops to wear away the rock; there must be precept upon precept to save the soul. Many a man, we cannot doubt, to whom the afternoon’s discourse would have been as the clinching of the already driven nail, has been kept out of heaven by being kept out of Church. The god of this world understands this matter, and has a fiendish delight, unquestionably, in empty seats. The Christian, too, may lose by absence just what he peculiarly needs. It may be the resolving of some obstinate perplexity; or the removal of some overshadowing doubt; or the soothing of some deep wound of sorrow; or the detection of some latent sin; or the guarding of the soul against some specious temptation; or the shedding down of light upon some dimly-discerned path of duty or point of doctrine; or the opening up of a broad vista into the glories of heaven. Every wise pastor has his plans of discourse. He cannot be always preaching on the same theme; and just the service from which you are needlessly absent, may be the predetermined one, and the only one for a long period, in which he may lay himself out to meet exactly your case. There are, besides, connections between different discourses, and that often when no formal series is either announced or undertaken. As the absence of a pupil at a single lesson unfits him for those that succeed, so he who loses a single sermon may lack a very desirable preparation, both of mind and heart, for whatever is to follow. For thine own sake, then, my brother—to make the most of the priceless privileges of the sanctuary—to guard against losses for which no earthly gains can be equivalent, and which the future can never retrieve—give to God not only a half, but a whole day’s service.
II. The man who is willingly a half-day hearer proclaims the Sabbath a weariness.
The estimation in which a man holds this day of God and its services is an unequivocal indication of his own state and prospects. “A day in thy courts,” said David—not half a day, observe—”is better than a thousand.” A like judgment, as we have already intimated, have holy men of all ages pronounced. Differing widely in other points, they have had little difference in this. By another class, however, quite an opposite view has been taken. It was boldly uttered by some of old. “When will the new moon be gone,” they said, “that we may sell corn; and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?” Few now would express themselves so frankly, especially under a profession of piety. Yet does not conduct speak? The Sabbath is not a private but a public affair. Public worship is its chief and most characteristic service. He who is habitually done with that service when the sun has reached the meridian—who ignores whatever may remain of it—who spends the rest of the day, so far at least as the ministry of the Word is concerned, as if holy time were ended, looks he not coldly on the whole sabbatical ordinance? What can he be understood to mean but that it is irksome to him—that he would have as little of it as possible—that he is well pleased when it is over? How unlike is he to the man in whose view all its moments are more precious than the sands of old Pactolus, or of the modern land of gold; and its last sands the most precious of all!
In this weariness of the Sabbath, it is worthy of special note, men declare themselves weary of the gospel message that comes with it. In this direction the example of the half-day attendant is specially eloquent. All over his vacant seat, as the neglected service opens, is written, in most visible characters, “No more of the old pulpit routine—of sin, of ruin, of atonement, of faith, of salvation! Enough, for one day, of Gethsemane, of Calvary, of ‘the Lamb as it had been slain!’ Discourse as the preacher may of the woes of perdition, of the bliss of heaven, of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, it shall have no attraction for me. Let the task of the morning purchase me a welcome release for the rest of the day.” Instead of being “swift to hear,” such an one, even when he sits in the sanctuary, is little better than a deaf man.
III. Men of this class declare by their conduct that mere earthly gratifications are superior to heavenly.
It is the joy which perishes that lures them from the joy divine. I will not speak of those who, having done penance by sitting through the morning sermon, dash by us on a ride of pleasure, not only breaking the Sabbath themselves, but disregarding God’s benevolent ordinance touching the brute creation. Some leave their places in God’s house vacant, that they may make pleasant calls of friendship; that they may take their fill, while the pressure of business is intermitted, of multifarious gossip. The ruddy glow of the cheerful coal fire, or the gentle warmth of the summer air, the luxurious lounge, and the pleasant faces of the family group or friendly circle—powerful pleas these last, nay, all these, properly considered, for faithful Church-going—may yet, in many cases, be prevalent inducements to an abridgment of that duty. Nor are inferior competitions wanting. The Sabbath, it is alleged, is not a fast-day; it is a joyful occasion, it is a high festival. A festival for the soul it truly is; but some, keeping a brute’s Sabbath, make it a feast-day for the body. On other days, perhaps, such gratifications are omitted, or the time allotted to them curtailed, for all-potent business hinders; but less potent religion does not forbid it on this. The sermon can hardly be too laconic; but for the spreading of the cloth, and the despatching of the several courses, there must be ample time. The Church bell cannot compete with the bell that summons waiting epicureans to their groaning altar. The viands are savoury; it may not be so with the preaching. The material condiments are good; it may possibly be otherwise with the rhetorical. Of the carnal feast, so temptingly spread out, there can be no question; but there is more than a doubt in regard to the gospel feast. It could hardly be expected that swiftness to hear should characterise persons of this description.
IV. The half-day hearer puts the business of this world above the things of religion.
No half-day work is there, commonly, in the prosecution of secular schemes. The service done for Mammon is no easy forenoon’s diversion. It would be a strange thing to see our mechanics leaving their workshops, and our merchants their counting-rooms, and our professional men their offices, just as the sun begins his daily declination, saying, “The morning hours must suffice for toil and gain.” Whole-day workers are the great mass of our citizens. It is no marvel if the evening shades find them still at their post. It is no strange thing if business, in some of its forms, makes long strides towards the “noon of night.” We say not this in the way of reprehension. There may, it is true, be excess in secular labours; but there must be diligence. In an age, and especially in a city like this, thrift, we are sure, is not for the man of slack hand. We only insist that the measure of devotedness to religion shall not fall below the prevailing type and standard of worldly efficiency. We only ask that if the secular market day is to be wholly kept, there should be a like keeping of the market-day of the soul. We only aver that he who improves most faithfully every hour of the former, while a moiety of the latter quite satisfies him—a moiety at least of its most important privileges—gives but too clear an indication of his preference for the things of earth, and most sadly under-rates the great realities of eternity.
Sickness, as we have said, may cut short Sabbath opportunities. But what if this be the effect of sickness that would not restrain from business? A noble rule is that of some godly men—to be kept from public worship by no ailment which would not keep them from their ordinary employments. There are fierce storms, I know. But what if through them all you make your way to the place of trade, or of amusement, or of social enjoyment? Are storms harder to meet with your faces Churchward? Distance may try your fidelity. But does it forbid your stated visits to the scene of worldly occupation? In that regard, as prudent men, you make calculations beforehand. You tolerate no distance which you may not regularly overcome. If we would not by our example disparage divine things, if, in the Scripture sense, we would be “swift to hear,” we must put our Sabbath-keeping, in all these relations, on at least as high a platform as the keeping of our week-days.
V. The conduct of the half-day hearer has a strong tendency to hinder the cause of Christ.
He harms not himself alone, but many others. He injures those who copy, as some will, the pattern he holds forth. He pours a chilling and discouraging influence on the heart of the preacher. I would you could understand how the spirit of the pastor faints within him, at times, as he gazes upon empty seats—especially if they be seats which he knows have holders, but which are apt to lack occupants. Weary hours, perhaps midnight hours, he has toiled in his study. He has sought, like the “Preacher” of old, “to find out acceptable words,” which shall be “as goads and as nails fastened by the master of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd”—even the gracious Shepherd divine. Hoping for the blessing of God on his message, he enters the pulpit. But, lo, the persons for whose conversion, or for whose growth in grace, he has been led peculiarly to long—persons of the very class to which his discourse is specially suited—are many of them not in their places. He would not think uncharitably of the absent, yet he cannot but think of them sorrowfully. So far as they are concerned he has laboured in vain; and it is no marvel if the depressing conviction of it should impair somewhat his usefulness to others. Ministers ought, indeed, to be raised by faith above all disheartening influences. Yet they are but men; at the best they have not a seraph’s fire. They need the influence of concurrent and enlivening ardours around them. Nothing is so great a help to them, short of the grace of God, as swiftness to hear. Scarcely anything is so like mountains of ice upon them as vacant seats.
Nor is the unhappy influence upon the preacher alone. It is matter of common observation, that feeling, other things being equal, is likely to be deepest when the greatest number of persons are present. The reason of this fact it is not difficult to state; it comes of the natural play and interchange of human sympathies. Fully and felicitously has Archbishop Whately elucidated this point. “Almost anyone,” he says, “is aware of the infectious nature of any emotion excited in a large assembly. It may be compared to the increase of sounds by a number of echoes, or of light by a number of mirrors, or to the blaze of a heap of firebrands, each of which would speedily have gone out if kindled separately, but which, when thrown together, help to kindle each other.” What then, I ask, if half the echoing crags are taken away, or a large part of the mirrors are wanting, or a considerable number of the firebrands are removed? Of sound, light, heat, there must be a proportional diminution. Just so must feeling be diminished if, while the case in other respects remains the same, you diminish the number of those who are expected to feel. Especially is this the fact if hearers are absent whose presence was looked for. The heart is chilled the more by force of contrast and the feeling of disappointment. Let it never be forgotten, then, by him who is needlessly away from his place in the sanctuary, that as surely as the abstraction of fuel from the furnace below us tends to throw a wintry influence over our physical frames, so surely does his lack of attendance conduce to a moral frigidity in those who are present. The laws of mind in this regard are settled and immutable. I need only suggest, in addition to all this, the reproach cast upon a particular congregation, in the eyes of strangers at least, by empty pews and a sparse audience—the reproach upon its ministry, its brotherhood, its office-bearers, its private members—upon all that pertains to it.
VI. I remark, finally, it is the saddest fact in the history of the half-day hearer, that he dishonours God.
It is the temple of the Most High from which he turns away. It is the ministry of the divine Redeemer he so lightly esteems. It is the blessed day of God, the day which commemorated at first the work of creation, and which commemorates now the greater work of redemption, he so grudgingly regards. Of all days the Sabbath is fullest of God—it is ever, in a spiritual sense, “The bridal of the earth and sky.” It is the grand audience-day of the King of kings. Of all its privileges, none bear more clearly the seal of Jehovah, none are more fragrant with the love of Immanuel, than the services of the sanctuary. It is not merely because the half-day attendant harms his own soul, and the souls of the people, while he fills with sadness the heart of his pastor, that we would urge upon him the injunction of our text. It is because his Maker calls for his homage, and will not hold him guiltless if he but sparingly renders it. “I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts.” “Them that honour me, I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.”
It is a matter of thankfulness that there are so many to whom these words will serve no other purpose than that of cautioning them against a bad habit which they have not contracted. Even in their case, however, it will be no lost labour to magnify, as we have now done, the blessed ordinances of the Sabbath. Let the young, in this respect, form their habits aright. Let us all see to it that ours be no half-hearted or half-completed observance of those ordinances. As, on the day of God, the New Jerusalem cometh down to us, its pearly gates glittering in our view, its seraphic symphonies floating around us, let us be eager to gaze, let us be “swift to hear.” Instead of wishing to shorten holy time, or to abridge its privileges, let us be waiting and longing, rather, for its lapse into the everlasting Sabbath.