BEHAVIOR AT CHURCH.
Around the door of country meeting-houses it has always been the custom for
the people to gather before and after church for social intercourse and the
shaking of hands. Perhaps because we, ourselves, were born in the country
and had never got over it, the custom pleases us. In the cities we arrive
the last moment before service and go away the first moment after. We act
as though the church were a rail-car, into which we go when the time for
starting arrives, and we get out again as soon as the depot of the Doxology
is reached. We protest against this business way of doing things. Shake
hands when the benediction is pronounced with those who sat before and
those who sat behind you. Meet the people in the aisle, and give them
Christian salutation. Postponement of the dining hour for fifteen minutes
will damage neither you nor the dinner. That is the moment to say a
comforting word to the man or woman in trouble. The sermon was preached to
the people in general; it is your place to apply it to the individual
heart.
The church aisle may be made the road to heaven. Many a man who was
unaffected by what the minister said has been captured for God by the
Christian word of an unpretending layman on the way out.
You may call it personal magnetism, or natural cordiality, but there are
some Christians who have such an ardent way of shaking hands after meeting
that it amounts to a benediction. Such greeting is not made with the left
hand. The left hand is good for a great many things, for instance to hold a
fork or twist a curl, but it was never made to shake hands with, unless you
have lost the use of the right. Nor is it done by the tips of the fingers
laid loosely in the palm of another. Nor is it done with a glove on. Gloves
are good to keep out the cold and make one look well, but have them so they
can easily be removed, as they should be, for they are non-conductors of
Christian magnetism. Make bare the hand. Place it in the palm of your
friend. Clench the fingers across the back part of the hand you grip. Then
let all the animation of your heart rush to the shoulder, and from there to
the elbow, and then through the fore arm and through the wrist, till your
friend gets the whole charge of gospel electricity.
In Paul's time he told the Christians to greet each other with a holy kiss.
We are glad the custom has been dropped, for there are many good people who
would not want to kiss us, as we would not want to kiss them. Very
attractive persons would find the supply greater than the demand. But let
us have a substitute suited to our age and land. Let it be good, hearty,
enthusiastic, Christian hand-shaking.
Governor Wiseman, our grave friend at tea, broke in upon us at this moment
and said: I am not fond of indiscriminate hand-shaking, and so am not
especially troubled by the lack of cordiality on the part of church-goers.
But I am sometimes very much annoyed on Sabbaths with the habit of some
good people in church. It may be foolish in me; but when the wind blows
from the east, it takes but little to disturb me.
There are some of the best Christian people who do not know how to carry
themselves in religious assemblage. They never laugh. They never applaud.
They never hiss. Yet, notwithstanding, are disturbers of public worship.
There is, for instance, the coughing brigade. If any individual right ought
to be maintained at all hazards, it is the right of coughing. There are
times when you must cough. There is an irresistible tickling in the throat
which demands audible demonstration. It is moved, seconded and unanimously
carried that those who have irritated windpipes be heard. But there are
ways with hand or handkerchief of breaking the repercussion. A smothered
cough is dignified and acceptable if you have nothing better to offer. But
how many audiences have had their peace sacrificed by unrestrained
expulsion of air through the glottis! After a sudden change in the weather,
there is a fearful charge made by the coughing brigade. They open their
mouths wide, and make the arches ring with the racket. They begin with a
faint "Ahem!" and gradually rise and fall through all the scale of
dissonance, as much as to say: "Hear, all ye good people! I have a cold! I
have a bad cold! I have an awful bad cold! Hear how it racks me, tears me,
torments me. It seems as if my diaphragm must be split. I took this awful
bad cold the other night. I added to it last Sunday. Hear how it goes off!
There it is again. Oh dear me! If I only had 'Brown's troches,' or the
syrup of squills, or a mustard plaster, or a woolen stocking turned wrong
side out around my neck!" Brethren and sisters who took cold by sitting in
the same draught join the clamor, and it is glottis to glottis, and
laryngitis to laryngitis, and a chorus of scrapings and explosions which
make the service hideous for a preacher of sensitive nerves.
We have seen people under the pulpit coughing with their mouth so far open
we have been tempted to jump into it. There are some persons who have a
convenient ecclesiastical cough. It does not trouble them ordinarily; but
when in church you get them thoroughly cornered with some practical truth,
they smother the end of the sentences with a favorite paroxysm. There is a
man in our church who is apt to be taken with one of these fits just as the
contribution box comes to him, and cannot seem to get his breath again till
he hears the pennies rattling in the box behind him. Cough by all means,
but put on the brakes when you come to the down grade, or send the racket
through at least one fold of your pocket-handkerchief.
Governor Wiseman went on further to say that the habits of the pulpit
sometimes annoyed him as much as the habits of the pew. The Governor said:
I cannot bear the "preliminaries" of religious service.
By common consent the exercises in the churches going before the sermon are
called "preliminaries." The dictionary says that a "preliminary" is that
which precedes the main business. We do not think the sermon ought to be
considered the main business. When a pastor at the beginning of the first
prayer says "O God!" he has entered upon the most important duty of the
service. We would not depreciate the sermon, but we plead for more
attention to the "preliminaries." If a minister cannot get the attention of
the people for prayer or Bible reading, it is his own fault. Much of the
interest of a service depends upon how it is launched.
The "preliminaries" are, for the most part, the time in which people in
church examine their neighbors' clothes. Milliners and tailors get the
advantage of the first three-quarters of an hour. The "preliminaries" are
the time to scrutinize the fresco, and look round to see who is there, and
get yourself generally fixed.
This idea is fostered by home elocutionary professors who would have the
minister take the earlier exercises of the occasion to get his voice in
tune. You must not speak out at first. It is to be a private interview
between you and heaven. The people will listen to the low grumble, and
think it must be very good if they could only hear it. As for ourselves, we
refuse to put down our head in public prayer until we find out whether or
not we are going to be able to hear. Though you preach like an angel, you
will not say anything more important than that letter of St. Paul to the
Corinthians, or that Psalm of David which you have just now read to the
backs of the heads of the congregation. Laymen and ministers, speak out!
The opening exercises were not instituted to clear your voice, but to save
souls. If need be, squeeze a lemon and eat "Brown's troches" for the sake
of your voice before you go to church; but once there, make your first
sentence resonant and mighty for God. An hour and a half is short time
anyhow to get five hundred or five thousand people ready for heaven. It is
thought classic and elegant to have a delicate utterance, and that loud
tones are vulgar. But we never heard of people being converted by anything
they could not hear. It is said that on the Mount of Olives Christ opened
His mouth and taught them, by which we conclude He spake out distinctly.
God has given most Christians plenty of lungs, but they are too lazy to use
them. There are in the churches old people hard of hearing who, if the
exercises be not clear and emphatic, get no advantage save that of looking
at the blessed minister.
People say in apology for their inaudible tones: "It is not the thunder
that kills, but the lightning." True enough; but I think that God thinks
well of the thunder or He would not use so much of it. First of all, make
the people hear the prayer and the chapter. If you want to hold up at all,
let it be on the sermon and the notices. Let the pulpit and all the pews
feel that there are no "preliminaries."