The idea of many is that it is always financially profitable when entertainment is what could properly be called a penny-wise and pound-foolish proceeding. It brings in scores of dollars, but it loses hundreds and thousands. This it does in two ways:

First, by the entertainment plan, we are educating the young generation not to give. Instead of teaching of young people that it is their privilege and duty to contribute and training them to do so from principle, and systematically, we are actually paying them to give. We are bribing them, coaxing them with charades, tableaux, concerts, berries and cream to give to Christ, their Maker, Redeemer, Benefactor, and Judge.

The attitude of many of our young people today, if transformed into language, is, "Tempt me — sing to me — coax me — induce me with savory dishes, and perhaps I may give to the cause of God." Look and see this strange education. Where are the princely givers of the church? As they die, who is taking their places? I know few young men who deserve to be called liberal. I do not blame them so much as I blame the church; for they have been educated not to give.

Another way in which entertainment hurts the church financially is that it stands in the room of the better and true way. There are many people who willingly shelter themselves behind a fifty-cent ticket of admission to a 'church' festival, or feel they have done liberal things by eating a saucer of ice cream and go off tranquil in mind and self-satisfied. If the appeal for help had been made on the line of conscience, and in the name of the Son of God, there would have been fifty dollars in the treasury instead of fifty cents. The profound mistake of God’s people is seen in working with the human stomach when the moral nature does not reside there. The work of the church is with man’s conscience — may she not forget it — for there is to be her great achievement and only lasting victory.

I might also mention how much entertainment loses for the church by grieving and disgusting conscientious and spiritually-minded people who feel that the whole thing is wrong, and so draw off and have nothing to do with the entire matter. Let me give an instance. I knew of a certain congregation that had concluded to erect a building. A gentleman, who well to do, thinking it was to be erected through the voluntary gifts of the people, quietly resolved to bring up a thousand dollars. To his unspeakable disgust, before the Christian community had been approached for the amount that could have been easily raised, 'church' entertainment was inaugurated. He quietly drew out and had nothing more to do with the matter. The entertainment raised several hundreds of dollars, but lost a thousand from one individual. It is, I repeat, a penny-wise and pound-foolish business, and if the church, while counting its dimes and dollars, could only see the hundreds and thousands that might have been hers, she would open her eyes in astonishment and give up this method. Take God’s plan instead, which has ever been, and will ever be, the best, world without end.

I repeat, as a financial plan, 'church' entertainment is a failure. Has not the reader noticed that the congregations that most abound in this method are always in debt? I recall a certain church in this city that invested twenty dollars in a festival and took in three; net loss seventeen dollars. At another in the same city the congregation secured, at considerable outlay, the presence of a famous preacher and lecturer, hired an expensive hall and lost three hundred dollars by the end of the operation. They had expected to make one or two thousand. Viewed in every light, 'church' entertainment, as a financial method for caring for God’s cause, is worse than a failure.

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