They are productive of the most unhappy differences and dissensions in the congregation.

Just to announce a 'church' entertainment is the signal for the first division. The spectacle to the world is lamentable in the extreme. A congregation that should be a unit in God’s service is here now divided into two opposing bodies. Which side will the preacher take? By springing the question, or permitting it to be sprung, he has now two factions in the church, and no matter which side he takes, he has now arrayed against himself with part of the flock.

The judgment is, "Better never to have 'church' entertainment. Better for the minister to do his utmost to prevent the occurrence, for this reason if for no other." But this is not the saddest division; there will be divisions in the divisions themselves, especially in the church entertainment workers. Some one speaks of the old family feuds in the South. They were, I admit, bitter and long enduring, but let me say I have known more rancorous feuds and quarrels than these that have arisen at 'church' entertainments. Upon a question of gravy and potatoes, or a knot of ribbon, or an hour’s popularity, individuals and families have been betrayed into bitterness of spirit and acrimony of remark, and finally into widening separations that have lasted as long as the lives of the parties themselves.

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