Some time ago I sat in a council of workers in an overseas division, and listened with deep interest. The subject under discussion was that of maintaining our church standards, keeping the church pure and unspotted from the world. Many ideas were advanced. What should be done? One thought that the church should legislate—determine what should be the length of skirts worn by growing girls, and how far from the ground should come the skirts of our older sisters. Another thought that there should be some regulation against half hose, and another thought that the sisters should wear stockings to church. Still another had a burden to see a regulation that would prohibit any from coming to church without shoes.
I cringed as I heard the discussion, for I felt that we were in danger of polishing the outside of the cup to the neglect of the inside, of attempting to produce fruit by plucking the leaves from the tree, leaving the fruit to the blast. What poor woman wouldn't be glad to wear stockings to the house of God if only she possessed a pair, or what poor man would come to church barefooted if only he had a pair of long-cobbled shoes ? Well do I remember a poor old native woman who came to our Rusangu Mission, and fearfully yet pleadingly inquired "if an old woman" like her "could be baptized in skins." She had no European clothes—just rough-tanned skins.
While I believe fully in maintaining high church standards, I believe there is danger that we sometimes "sit in the seat of the scornful" and legislate or dictate instead of cultivating, neglecting the power of the love of Christ to transform lives.
We forget at times, I fear, that true religion and worship are exercises in expressing the soul's devotion to God for His love revealed in the gift of Jesus. Its success is measured by holiness of heart and life, but "to substitute external forms of religion for holiness of heart and life, is still as pleasing to the unrenewed nature as it was in the days of these Jewish teachers."—"Acts of the Apostles," p. 387.
Again we read: "The effort to earn salvation by one's own works, inevitably leads men to pile up human exactions as a barrier against sin. For, seeing that they fail to keep the law, they will devise rules and regulations of their own to force themselves to obey. All this turns the mind away from God to self. His love dies out of the heart, and with it perishes love for their fellow men."—"Mount of Bless-in," p. 177.
Instead of plucking off the leaves of worldly trends in dress or fashion by legislation, let us rather produce the fruits of holiness by digging deep in the soil of the heart, enriching the spiritual life by holding before our dear people the beauty, the love, of Jesus, His death on the cross that we might live eternally, and His coming again that we might dwell with Him.
Let this, the love of Christ and the hope of His soon return, be the pure stimulus for purity of heart and life, rather than church legislation and fear of church discipline. Let us lift up the Saviour in sermon, in song, in prayer, in the home, and among the people, remembering the promise, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."
