The Working Christian

Relative to the ever present question of church debts, the Churchman discourses as follows:

Commercial principles have no place in churches. Whatever may be said of the converse—that church principles have a place (or should have) in commerce. And the root of the evil lies just where we have put it, in the position that a church must pay for and maintain itself, just as a theater or opera house, or concert hall sustains itself. The truth is that every Christian is bound to maintain public worship according as God has prospered him. We do not discuss here the best methods of doing this. There are ideal theories of the matter always to be kept in view, but not to be rashly pressed. But this plain distinction lies at the bottom of all, that the church is to be maintained by the people, and not to be "run" on business, that is, upon remunerative principles. The layman who makes a profit, no matter how small, out of a church is guilty of sin, the same sin, in kind, as that of the priest who sells its sacraments. And the layman who seeks to manage a church so as to spare himself that which he can rightly afford, is taking one step, and that a long one, towards the same sin.