Addressing a big Methodist camp-meeting, Bishop Quayle informed
his audience how to discern a Christian by street-car manners.
“If you are hanging on a strap in a crowded street-car, and
the conductor calls out ‘Step forward, please,’ and there is
no place in front where you can step forward, the way you act
will be a test of your religion. If you are a woman, and a man
gives you his seat, and you act as if you thought it was your
right and not his kindness that gave you the seat, the way you
act will test you more than answering questions in theology.
It is not how you treat some big body, but how you treat a
little urchin, dirty in tears, that tests your religion. What
you do when you are off duty--that’s what counts. What if the
people who see us at church and at weddings should see us in
the betweens? What we Christians do ofttimes kills faith in the
Church. Anybody can see a rose-garden in the daytime, but we can
also smell it in the dark. What we do when nobody sees us ought
to be as beautiful as what we do in the open.”
(2655)