gs of the
subject has not been duly impressed upon it. All that can be said of
idleness generally might be fitly urged in support of this great
practical truth. All nations which have prematurely passed away, buried
in graves dug by their own effeminacy; all those individuals who have
secured a hasty wealth by the chances of speculation; all children of
fortune; all victims of inheritance; all social sponges; all satellites
of the court; all beggars of the market-place--all these are living and
unlying witness to the unalterable retributions of the law of
parasitism. But it is when we come to study the working of the principle
in the religious sphere there we discover the full extent of the ravages
which the parasitic habit can make on the souls of men. We can only hope
to indicate here one or two of the things in modern Christianity which
minister most subtly and widely to this as yet all but unnamed sin.

We begin in what may seem a somewhat unlooked-for quarter. One of the
things in the religious world which tends most strongly to induce the
parasitic habit is _Going to Church_. Church-going itself every
Christian will rightly consider an invaluable aid to the ripe
development of the spiritual life. Public worship has a place in the
national religious life so firmly established that nothing is ever
likely to shake its influence. So supreme indeed, is the ecclesiastical
system in all Christian countries that with thousands the religion of
the Church and the religion of the individual are one. But just because
of its high and unique place in religious regard, does it become men
from time to time to inquire how far the Church is really ministering to
the spiritual health of the immense religious community which looks to
it as its foster-mother. And if it falls to us here reluctantly to
expose some secret abuses of this venerable system, let it be well
understood that these are abuses, and not that the sacred institution
itself is being violated by the attack of an impious hand.

The danger of church-going largely depends on the form of worship, but
it may be affirmed that even the most perfect Church affords to all
worshipers a greater or less temptation to parasitism. It consists
essentially in the deputy-work or deputy-worship inseparable from the
church or chapel ministrations. One man is set apart to prepare a
certain amount of spiritual truth for the rest. He, if he is a true man,
gets all the benefits of original