Take these things hence — John 2: 16
Quasi-Religious social evenings are becoming an unmitigated nuisance. This sort of thing began in treats for children as inducements to attend, and as rewards for attending, the Sabbath School. But it did not stop there. We have now congregational social evenings, at which an annual opportunity is taken of parading the work done, and the money raised, during the past year, flattering speeches are exchanged by those who take kindly to be licked all over with an oily tongue, and a great deal of vapid sentiment is mixed up with exaggerated statements as to success seasoned with bits of drollery, and interspersed with sensational music. The attempt to sanctify all this by the Word and by prayer is successful only as a sacrilege. What should be exalted is degraded, and the alliance of religion and the world, in that as in every other instance, is all to the gain of the latter. It would be folly to expect a spark to live if placed in the midst of ice. The ice could not be fuel for the spark, but would by the contact dissolve in water to quench it. So must it fare with spiritual fervour in contact with the surroundings of a social evening. — The Present Cast and Tendency of Religious Thought and Feeling in Scotland. — John Kennedy. D.D.