Many churches to-day are running to extremes in one way or another.

On the one hand, they are conducted along the lines of form, ceremony and ritualism; the other extreme results in excitement, ecstasy and fanaticism.

The church of forms, rituals and ceremonies attracts the passive who are willing to let the priest or pastor or prelate take charge of the religious work while they, the attendants or worshippers, sit quietly by and say "amen" and join in the responses.

Paul said, "Away with those forms." Christ, in ministering to humanity, gave no forms and made no set sentences for his followers. The Lord's Prayer was given with the admonition, "After this manner pray ye," and certainly not with the command, "Pray ye with these words."

Form, ceremony and ritual are much like most associated charities—a sort of convention. Forms cannot express the deep emotions, the natural longings, or the human desires; they are echoes, hollow and unsatisfying.

For those who do not feel, for those who do not act, for those who belong to churches because of convention, or for social reasons, forms and frills fill the bill.

Form is an exterior religion, an outward show. Form doesn't touch the heart or awaken the soul. Form in religion is like a formal dinner. It is a gaudy display rather than a plan to satisfy human heart hunger.

Opposite to formal religion is the frenzied "scare-you-to-death" excitement method, which relies upon mental intoxication to stir the people. Like other forms of intoxication, the effect soon wears off.

I have little patience or sympathy for the business men who hire professional evangelists to come to town to start revivals. The sensational revivalists have too acute an appreciation of the dollar to convince me of their sincerity in their work.

A laborer is worthy of his hire, and a preacher, teacher or benefactor of any sort should be well paid. But when I see these big guns taking away from ten to one hundred thousand dollars in cold cash for a three weeks' campaign converting the poor suffering people, the thought comes to me that if the evangelist were sincere, he would buy a lot of bread, coal and underwear, and hire a lot of trained nurses with a big part of that money.

Christ and his Apostles were of the people; they worked with and among the people; they had no committees, no guarantees and no business men's subscription lists.

It's mighty hard to read about these sensational evangelists taking in thousands of dollars for a couple of weeks' revival meetings, and harmonize that religion with the religion of Christ, the carpenter, and his Apostles, who were fishermen and workmen.

The exciting, intoxicating, frenzied revival method is pretty much the same in its working wherever it is practised. The evangelist starts in with the song, "Where is My Wandering Boy To-night;" then follows the picture of mother, which is painted with sobs of blood. Then follows mother's death-bed scene until the audience is in tears. Gesticulation, mimicry, acting, sensationalism, slang and weepy stories follow, until the ferment of excitement is developed to a high pitch, and droves flock down the sawdust trail to be made over on the instant into sanctified beings.

The evangelist stays until his engagement is up, and then departs with a pocket full of nice fat bank drafts.

But there is nothing new about this method. It is as old as humanity. It is the same method that is practised in the more remote and uncivilized portions of the world to-day, where garishly painted savages congregate and render homage to their gods in an orgy of yelling, whooping and beating of the tom-tom.

It is a sad commentary on the established profession of the ministry that sensational professionals are called in and paid fabulous prices to convert the people in their community.

I do not take much stock in either the frigid form-and-ceremonial method with its frills, or the frenzied fire-and-brimstone, scare-you-to-it extreme.

Somewhere between these extremes is the rational, natural, sane road to travel—the religion of brotherly love; of cheers, not tears; of hope, not fear; of courage, not weakness; of joy, not sorrow; of help, not hindrance.

The religion that makes us love one another here—not the kind that says we shall know each other there; the religion that has to do with human passions, human trials, human needs, instead of the frigid form or the fevered frenzy; the religion that avoids the extremes of heat and cold—that's the kind the world needs most.

Christ taught love, kindness, charity. He spoke not of beautiful churches and opera-singing choirs. He spoke not of robes, vestments, forms or rituals.

One of the most beautiful things in the Bible is the story of the good Samaritan with his simple, unostentatious aid to a wounded man—a man whom the Samaritan knew as an enemy of his people, but who was none the less a brother. And you will remember how the priest of the temple—the man who taught charity and love—drew up his skirts and passed the wounded man by.