Perhaps nothing is more common than a profession of spiritual life with
very feeble evidence of its existence.
A preacher visiting an infirmary, guided through the institution
by a member of the medical staff, described various cases as
the two passed along: “Anemic condition,” “creeping paralysis,”
“nervous dyspepsia,” “locomotor ataxia,” etc. Having passed
through all the wards, the minister said, “I have known a church
with just such people in it. It took six hundred members a whole
year to bring eleven souls to confess Christ. The prayer-meeting
was affected by creeping paralysis and four-fifths of the men
seemed to be suffering from locomotor ataxia of the soul.” The
doctor replied, “And I one day remember seeing a very beautiful
engine at an exhibition, but it was on a table, not on rails.
It was only four feet long and about two feet high, and when I
asked the man in charge what it was for he said it was not for
use in any way, but was simply on exhibition. And,” added the
doctor, “I have seen ministers and churches just like that.”
(Text.)
(433)
=Church-going Enforced=--See WORSHIP, ENFORCED.