ife is a prolonged
indulgence in the bounties of the Church; and surely--in some cases at
least the crowning irony--he sends for the minister when he lies down to
die.

Other signs and consequences of this species of parasitism soon become
very apparent. The first symptom is idleness. When a Church is off its
true diet it is off its true work. Hence one explanation of the hundreds
of large and influential congregations ministered to from week to week
by men of eminent learning and earnestness, which yet do little or
nothing in the line of these special activities for which all churches
exist. An outstanding man at the head of a huge, useless and torpid
congregation is always a puzzle. But is the reason not this, that the
congregation gets too good food too cheap? Providence has mercifully
delivered the Church from too many great men in her pulpits, but there
are enough in every country-side to play the host disastrously to a
large circle of otherwise able-bodied Christian people, who, thrown on
their own resources, might fatten themselves and help others. There are
compensations to a flock for a poor minister after all. Where the fare
is indifferent those who are really hungry will exert themselves to
procure their own supply.

That the Church has indispensable functions to discharge to the
individual is not denied; but taking into consideration the universal
tendency to parasitism in the human soul it is a grave question whether
in some cases it does not really effect more harm than good. A dead
church certainly, a church having no reaction on the community, a church
without propagative power in the world, cannot be other than a calamity
to all within its borders. Such a church is an institution, first for
making, then for screening parasites; and instead of representing to the
world the Kingdom of God on earth, it is despised alike by godly and by
godless men as the refuge for fear and formalism and the nursery of
superstition.

And this suggests a second and not less practical evil of a parasitic
piety--that it presents to the world a false conception of the religion
of Christ. One notices with a frequency which may well excite alarm that
the children of church-going parents often break away as they grow in
intelligence, not only from church-connection but from the whole system
of family religion. In some cases this is doubtless due to natural
perversity, but in others it certainly arises from the hollowness of th