I cannot withhold a growing suspicion that the great “mass-meetings” of the present day, for the ostensible object of promoting spiritual life, do not tend to promote private home religion, private Bible-reading, private prayer, private usefulness, and private walking with God. If they are of any real value, they ought to make people better husbands and wives, and fathers and mothers, and sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters, and masters and mistresses and servants. . . . It is far easier to be a Christian in a public room than to be a consistent Christian in a quiet, retired, out-of-the-way, uncongenial home.

– J.C. Ryle

1816 – 1900