The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1894-02-27
THE VALUE OF LENT.

ances. particularly of the season of Lent.
In a sermon preached in his own
church in Brooklyn, the Rev. DIR. Van
Dyke, speaking of certain religious OBJ
servances, speaks of follows:
This brings US to the practical ques-
ton, What time is most favorable for this
purpose 1t seems to me that the best
time is the season commonly known as
Lent. What you will say, has our
minister turned Episcopalian p No, he
has not turned anything, not being given
to change. But he is old enough to be
willing to learn, and his devotion to the
holy catholic church is sufficiently domi-
nant over all lesser attachments to make
him willing to learn something even from
Episcopalians. In many of the cOnser-
vative elements of our common Chris
tianity they are the noblest of Christians
In our land. The reasons of their growth,
in which during the past few years they
have outstripped all other Christian de-
nominations, are not far to seek. And
these reasons are not dishonorable to
them. They lie much deeper than forms,
or vestments, or music. They consist in
church as Divine institution upon the
sacred ediices which are consecrated to
Gods worship; upon the sacraments as
means of grace, made effectual by the
abiding presence and power of the Holy
Spirit; upon the ministry as separate
order of men, ordained to be stewards of
the mysteries of God in all of which
our Presbyterian standards agree with
them, whatever our practice may be.
They consist in the decency of their pub
lie worship, which excludes by its fixed
forms, the manners of the circus and the
theatre, and in the discipline which the
violation of that decency brings upon the
offender They consist in the refuge
which in many places that church offers
to sober-minded Christians who are trou-
bled by the insistance upon political and
other inscriptions tests of Christian
character and church membership. And
finally these elements of growth consist,
to some extent, in the setting apart of set
seasons for religious worship and instruc-
tons.
owe need not connect the observance
of Lent (athough / can see no harm in
doing so) with the forty days of Christ's
fasting in the wilderness, nor with the
forty days of Moses on the mount, nor
with the forty days granted to Nineveh to
repent. We need not fast in the literal
sense of the word but We must fast from
sin, and from worldliness, and to some ex-
tent from lawful worldly business, that
we may fill ourselves with Divine truth.
The season referred to is favorable for
such spiritual fasting and feasting, because
there is in all our large communities lull
in the spirit and an ebb in the tide of
worldliness We deal with this simply
as fact, without going largely into the
discussion of its causes 1t will be suf
ficient to observe that these causes are
twofold: the fixed observance of this sea-
son by the Episcopal Church, and the
courteous respect which Christians of
other denominations pay to their wishes
and habits. Our social circles are made
up and our public amusements arranged
without regard to sectarian differences.
and it is a mark of good breeding, not to
say of Christian charity, to do nothing
that would exclude the presence or wound
the feelings of any. even though they may
constitute a minority. And hence it
comes to pass, that at the beginning of
Lent there is sudden cessation of social
entertainments and of all kinds of amnse-
ments, good, bad, and indifferent. The
music and dancing cease, the church bells
ring, and there is hush in the commun-
ity.
MANY see in this an argument against
the observance of Lent They say it offers
a temptation to crowd all our religion
into forty days, and tends to make people
more worldly in anticipation of the season
of humiliation. And it cannot be denied
that there is force in this objection. There
is tendency in our nature to commute
with God. and to sin in the expectation of
repentance and forgiveness. But this ten
dency does not belong to any form of wor-
ship, nor does the objection lie against
any one holy time. There are people
who are religious only in time of revival.
There are Sabbath-day Christians, and
prayer-meetihg Christians, and so no
doubt there are Lenten Christians. But
shall we abolish the Sabbath and the
prayer meeting, because nnlearned and
unstable souls thus abuse them? Let us
look at the facts. Many of us were
brought up to believe, and perhaps some
of us still believe, that the churches which
keep Lent are preeminent for worldliness
and that they have monopoly of 1.-THE
pomps and vanities of the world" which
they renonnce in their baptismal vows.
But tell you If this ever were true, it is
not true to-day. If you go, as many of
you do, into places of worldly amusement
into the theatre, into the charity ball,
with its thin veil of Christian benevo-
lence. or into the charity fairs where
pieces of paper are adroitly substituted for
the rattling of dice-you meet as many
Baptsts, and Methodists, and Presbyter-
ians as there are Episcopalians or Roman
Catholics. We are not now discussing the
propriety of the worldly amusements; out
we insist, that if we run with others to
the same excess of riot it will not do for
us when they begin to to turn for season
from their vanities to better things, to
stand back and say, See how these
worldly people crowd all their religion
into forty days" five dance for them
when they pipe, and pipe for them when
they dance, there is neither piety nor fair
dealing in our refusal to mourn with them
when they fast. 1t would be better
doubtless to have no carnival; but l in
sist that the carnival with the fast is
better for body and soul than the carni-
val without it.
Nor will it do for our country cousins to
wipe their mouths and say What
worldly people these city Christians are 7
If we demoralize them in the summer,
they demoralize us in the winter. Our
worldly amusements and our excess of
social pleasures are largely supported by
their patronage. Country Christians and
country ministers come hither and go to
places-to which most of us never think of
going and in nine cases out of ten, when
our more sober-minded church members
break the Sabbath or sanction by their
presence things which in their hearts
thew do not anDroVa the excuse is 'Xe