Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1869-06-05
CHURCH GOING.


The benefits of church attendance do
not consist alone in answering the de-
mauds of an intelligent and tender
conscience, and in the reception Of
those instructions and inspirations
which are necessary to the mainten-
ance of a sound religious life. There
are other benefits resulting from this
habit, which though not of a strictly re.
ligious nature, are of no small practical
consequence.
A healthy social life renders frequent
and decorous assemblages of the peo
pie q necessity. Human nature is
formed for fellowships. There are
affinities implanted in our bosoms
which impels us towards each other.
TO this are owing the gatherings known
as parties, in the homes in our cities
and towns, and the less formal circles
which meet around the evening fire.
sides in the country. The same princi
pie is illustrated in the clubs and other
organizations in which men band them
selves together for mutual intercourse
and sympathy. But these are gener-
ally private and select, and in the
case of the societies, the attendants
are pledged to secrecy. The social
life of the community cannot therefore
find in such gatherings its needed
pabulum. Besides, to attend meetings
of any kind, leisure is necessary. But
working people have but little of this
except on Sunday. The other six days
of the week are with the masses, en-
ployed in struggle for life. The
Sabbath affords them not only physical
and mental repose, but the leisure me-
cessary to go to meeting. And the
going to meeting keeps up the Sabbath
and thus secures to the laboring classes
leisure and rest. Let the churches be
deserted, and the people forbear to
listen to the weekly instructions and
appeals of the pulpit, and what would
become of the Sabbath.
1t would go overheard. No human
enactments could maintain it. Stores
would be thrown open, if the churches
were not, and spindles would rattle and
factories hum seven days in the week.
While Sunday affords the necessary
leisure for people to assemble in multi
tudes, and thus satisfy natural in
stinct, the doing so reacts upon the
Sabbath, and becomes its mightiest
human conservator.
Then the habit ofchurch going brings
society under the 4nfuence of teach
ings and motives which foster benevo-
lence. We are all given to selishness,
quality on which all injustice, fraud,
tyranny and cruelty are established.
Laws and prisons may do something to
curb such exhibitions of selfshness,
but they cannot render men tender,
amiable, loving and mutually helpful.
The gospel humanizes, even when it
does not convert. The inimitable pic
ture of the good Samaritan illustrates
its genius. People who go to church
are insensibly trained to feel and act
kindly. They are also led into the
habit Of giving money from benevo-
lent motives, consequently nations in
which churches abound and religious
ordinances are observed best illustrate
the humanitarian idea. The pagan
civilization of Greece and Roman.
could boast no hospitals nor asylums
for the helpless and wretched. Only a
civilization whose life is nourished by
the church has embodied in vast and
costly institutions the spirit of the
good Samaritan.
1t is not singular then, that by the
great majority of persons church at
tending is esteemed as one of the re
quisites of good citizenship. The peo-
pie justly consider that man who
sneers at the chuIch and tramples
down the sanctities of the Sabbath,
cannot be friend either of his race or
of his country. The multitude who keep
hoy day are fosterers of the ameni.
ties, the morals, and the charities of
tho world