They go too much on the assumption that
men already possess religion and that they come to church to discuss
it rather than to have it provided. They call men to be listeners
rather than participants in their temples. Of course, one may find
God through the mind. The great scholar, the mathematician or the
astronomer may cry with Kepler, "Behold, I think the thoughts of God
after him!" Yet a service which places its chief emphasis upon the
appeal to the will through instruction has declined from that realm
of the absolutes where religion in its purest form belongs. For since
preaching makes its appeal chiefly through reason, it thereby attempts
to produce only a partial and relative experience in the life of the
listener. It impinges upon the will by a slow process. Sometimes one
gets so deadly weary of preaching because, in a world like ours, the
reasonable process is so unreasonable. That's a half truth, of course,
but one that the modern world needs to learn.
Others would dissent from our position by saying that service, the
life of good will, is a sufficient worship. The highest adoration is
to visit the widows and the fatherless in their affliction. _Laborare
est orare_. What we do speaks so loud God does not care for what
we say. True: but the value of what we do for God depends upon the
godliness of the doer and where shall he find that godliness save in
the secret place of the Most High? And the greatest gift we can give
our fellows is to bring them into the divine presence.
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