OCTOBER 1, 1916 



941 



A. I. Root 



OUR HOMES 



Editor 



Oh how I love thy law I — Psalm 119:97. 



I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go 

 into the house of the Lord. — Psalm 122:1. 



Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. 

 — Hebrews 10:25. 



During our pastor's vacation a stranger 

 occupied the pulpit. He also was on his 

 vacation, and told a little of his experi- 

 ences. A part of his sermon concerning 

 church attendance took a great hold upon 

 me. I have several times before mentioned 

 that when T started out to serve the Lord, 

 in answer to the question if I should be put 

 down as a visitor to the Sunday-school or 

 at our regular services I replied, after con- 

 sidering the matter briefly, ^' Brother 

 Thompson, God helping me I am going to 

 be a regular attendant at our Sunday- 

 school the rest of my life." This statement 

 was made before a pretty good-sized Bible- 

 class; and T did not realize until afterward 

 what it meant. But I did realize that it 

 included attendance on the preaching ser- 

 vice as well as the Sunday-school ; and may 

 the Lord be praised that I cannot now re- 

 call having failed to attend church at least 

 once every Sunday, when it was reasonably 

 possible to do so ; and I cannot begin to 

 tell you what a benefit it has been to me for 

 the last forty or fifty years. 



This being the case, you can readily im- 

 agine how it pains me to hear people ex- 

 cuse themselves from going to church. They 

 are "too tired;" they "do not feel like it;" 

 " the weather is too hot ;" " the weather is 

 too cold ;" " it is too rainy to go out," and 

 no end of other and similar excuses. Many 

 times T have said to near and dear friends 

 after the sermon was over, " my dear 

 friend, you don't know what you missed by 

 being absent today. In fact, I should not 

 be surprised if you have, by staying at 

 home, missed one of the best sermons of 

 your life," etc. 



Here in Medina we have a talented, up- 

 to-date young minister. His sermons are 

 always listened to. If anybody ever went 

 to sleep while he was preaching, I did not 

 know it. We are also paying him what a 

 good many people think is a pretty good 

 salary; and yet these same persons who 

 contribute, perhaps quite liberally, to the 

 salary, voluntarily stay away. They do not 

 hesitate to make business arrangements that 

 keep them away on Sunday. Sometimes 

 they tell me they attended some other 

 church while away; but too often I find 

 they did not go at all. Sometimes the whole 

 family go on an outing, perhaps to their 

 summer home on the lake. When they get 



back I ask the question about church and 

 Sunday-school. With the automobiles that 

 are now so common there is but very little 

 difficulty in finding a church and Sunday- 

 school sufficiently near by here in Ohio. 

 But again and again I am pained to hear 

 they Avere too tired with the busy cares of 

 the week, and that they wanted one whole 

 day of rest. Now, I do not believe — at 

 least I cannot readily agree to the state- 

 ment — that anybody rests better by staying 

 at home reading pajoers and magazines, 

 dozing, etc., than by going to church at 

 least once on Sunday. And then the chil- 

 dren — a break in the Sunday-school lessons 

 means to a child that it is not so very im- 

 portant that he should be on hand at Sun- 

 day-school. 



Some of the excuses I have heard are 

 that the church near by is behind the times. 

 One i^arty who went to church (I think a 

 good deal because I urged it) said the poor 

 minister was so much put out by seeing a 

 crowd of " resorters " who came to his 

 church that he became embarrassed and 

 made awkward work of resuming his ser- 

 mon ; and they gave that as a reason for 

 staying away. It made me think of a rea- 

 son a young friend away up in Michigan 

 gave for not attending the weekly prayet- 

 meeting. He said it was all " run dowrx " 

 so there were not more than half a dozen 

 in attendance, and that was Ms excuse for 

 staying away. Now, in the case of the 

 young minister who was embarrassed be- 

 cause a lot of town people came in unex- 

 pectedly, perhaps in the middle of his ser- 

 mon, there was a splendid opportunity to 

 grasp hold of the good points in his talk, 

 and, after the sermon was over, take him 

 by the hand and give him a little encour- 

 agement that you could do honestly. I 

 never heard a sermon in my life that did 

 not contain something I could indorse and 

 congratulate the good brother for saying. 

 In fact. I usually do find a place to say 

 " amen " one or more times in almost every 

 sermon. By the way, this reminds me that 

 one excuse of some resorters was that the 

 nearest chui'ch to their summer cottage was 

 one where the sermon was jd reached in 

 German. Well, my advice is to go and 

 hear a sermon preached in a langniage yon 

 do not I'.nderstand, rather than not go at 

 all. You can listen to the singing and 

 enjoy it, for, thank God, music is a " uni- 

 versal language " understood by every tribe 

 and every nation. Yes, even the domestic 

 animals appreciate and enjoy music, as you 

 may have noticed. 



