My fifth objection is, that it neutralizes and defeats God’s plans and labors in behalf of the spiritual life of his people.

Life is an enigma to me if you eliminate the fact of God actively at work with our souls -- preparing them for another and better life. By His calls and movements, He is awakening and developing graces, gifts and powers within us that are to bless here and glorify us hereafter. Upon no power does He more frequently call, than the benevolent faculty. He is trying to establish the love principle, and secure a generous, liberal movement to our nature. Study men when and where we will, and we will discover that those individuals who have most endeared themselves to men lingered longest in grateful esteem and memory. Those who most nearly approximated the divine image, and were felt to be Christ-like, were those who abounded most in this spirit and life of love and liberality.

All men have not the same means to be generous, but all have the same power to be liberal. It can come to its full perfection as much in the soul of the seamstress as it does in the soul of the millionaire. Nothing will awaken and develop this grace, or faculty, so much as regular, persistent, systematic giving. When it hurts, so much the better. When our giving entails money sacrifices and/or acts of self-denial upon our part, this is simply blessed for the true believer's character — it is life itself to that most God-like part of the nature.

We do not always remember the gracious outcome to character of this giving, and so sometimes say, "Spare such and such an one from the financial calls of the church and God’s providence." But Christ never says "Spare." He lets a person give to him as long and as much as he will. He sees what we do not see. I notice that when this poor woman at the Treasury cast in her last farthing, he did not check her. He knew that it was all she had on earth, and yet he permitted her to cast it in the box. He saw what we had not thought of, that she would gain ten thousandfold more by it, in higher and better things, possibly in this world and certainly in the world to come. And so when she, in the exercise of those two heavenly powers -- faith and love -- cast in her mite, even all she had, Christ commended her and all heaven congratulated her.

Here now is seen the curse of 'church' entertainment. It comes in between God and his work; between the soul and its proper exercise and development. It defeats God’s gracious design and neutralizes a work connected with the soul’s blessedness and glory. And this it does while it creates the delusion in the soul that it is responding to a divine call and duty when there is not a single movement of the virtue God is endeavoring to awaken. We can certainly feel blessed by an entertaining episode, but the substance of Christ is not contained within the entertainment of men. The idea conveyed to the man is that because his feet and hands are busy and his body flying around, that therefore the principle God is seeking to arouse has been called into action -- when in reality nothing of the kind has been done. So far as the benevolent, liberal nature is concerned, it is profoundly motionless and dead. There is nothing in the 'church' fair, or show, to call it forth.

I have seen a mother disciplining her child in love, wisdom and firmness, and suddenly the father, without knowledge of the case, without stopping to inquire, would interfere, come between and bear off the child. I have seen a look of mortal anguish in the eyes of the mother. I could well understand the look. In like manner, 'church' entertainment throws itself between God and the spirit he is trying to educate for eternity -- preventing an exercise and development of powers that would bring more pure joy, true light and life to the soul, than almost any other virtue in the spiritual life. I charge the practice of 'church' entertainment with laying its hands upon God’s hand, and arresting his work.

Now bear in mind that it is not money as money that God desires. He is not poverty-stricken. He has inlaid the floor of the sea with pearls, his mountains are full of gold and silver. He could send an earthquake, some mighty dynamic force that would burst open some treasure-house in the bosom of the earth and scatter diamonds, as thick and bright and sparkling as raindrops, all over the church floors in the land. It is not money as money that God wants. He paid no attention to the value of the gifts the rich men threw into the Treasury. It is not money God is after, but the cultivation of the giving principle, and this 'church' entertainment defeats.

It does even more. We are taught in the Bible that giving is an act of worship. It is frequently classed and associated with prayer. What said the angel to the upright Roman, Cornelius? "Thy prayers and alms have come up as a memorial before God." They went up together, prevailed together, were accepted together. Now, then, if giving be so regarded in Scripture as an act of worship, then it is just as proper and advisable to treat people to berries and cream and charades, in order to get them to pray, as to do these things to get them to give. The additional feature of evil in 'church' entertainment is seen in that it lays a ruthless hand upon a beautiful act, and transforms it into a common, commercial transaction.

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