The excuse of the poor for not going to church is a poor excuse. The woman
who does not go to church because she cannot dress well enough, cannot
have much respect for her master. Jesus did not rail against the poor, but
the rich. He did not condemn Lazarus, but Dives. Christian churches should
be filled with rags, not silks; with paupers, not bankers. No one can be
too poor to feel at home in the church of him who was too poor to have a
place to lay his head. A Christian church is the church of poverty, and
its minister should welcome the tramp, the beggar, the rag-muffin, and
should give the cold shoulder to the rich merchant, the well-dressed
politician, the prosperous citizen.
It is a singular thing that while silks despise rags, rags respect silks.
The poor Christians ought to glory in their poverty, ought to be proud of
their patches. They should have utter contempt for good clothes, and go to
the church of Jesus with a feeling of pride that they honor him by being
poor, as he was. Velvet, satin and broad-cloth are insults to him whose
ragged royalty they profess to reverence.
If the poor were not as big hypocrites as the rich, they would drive the
richly-dressed worshipers out of the church dedicated to the
poverty-stricken Nazarene, who has been elected to the office of savior. A
person has not very much Christianity when his religion is ashamed of his
old clothes.