I remember the remark of a young girl
who had been several times to prayer-meeting where she heard the
same woman say every time that she "longed for the true spirit of
religion in her life." With all simplicity, this child said: "If she
longs for it, why doesn't she work and find it, instead of coming
every week and telling us that she longs?" In all probability the
woman returned from every prayer-meeting with the full conviction
that, having told her aspirations, she had reached the height
desired, and was worthy of all praise.
Prayer-meetings in the old, orthodox sense are not so numerous as
they were fifty years ago; but the same morbid love of telling one's
own experiences and expressing in words one's own desires for a
better life is as common as ever.
Many who would express horror at these public forms of
sentimentalizing do not hesitate to indulge in it privately to any
extent. Nor do they realize for a moment that it is the same morbid
spirit that moves them. It might not be so pernicious a practice if
it were not so steadily weakening.
If one has a spark of real desire for better ways of living,
sentimentalizing about it is a sure extinguisher if practised for
any length of time.
A woman will sometimes pour forth an amount of gush about wishing to
be better, broader, nobler, stronger, in a manner that would lead
you, for a moment, perhaps, to believe in her sincerity.
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