“I am at a loss to know what words to employ today: seeing the assemblies less well attended, Old Testament readings scorned, New Testament readings bypassed, fathers despised, the insult passing from the servants of the Lord, my intention is not to castigate, while on the other I recognize that those who should hear the accusation are not present - only you, who do not need this exhortation and correction. ... We gather here only once a week and they cannot manage to set aside their worldly concerns even on that day. If you offer a reproof, they at once pretend neediness, daily necessities, pressing occupations ... what could be more damning than this accusation, that something seems more urgent and pressing to you than God's affairs?... Here in the church you can see that not even the front seats are taken, whereas there not only the racetrack but also upstairs, private homes, roof tops, and countless other places are filled to capacity.   Not even neediness, work, bodily infirmity, sore feet or anything else of the kind inhibits this irrepressible frenzy; the elderly betake themselves off there with greater eagerness than the young and health... whereas when they attend here they think they are suffering even to the point of choking, and  faint when they listen to the divine sayings, claiming cramped conditions and stifling heat and the like, there on the contrary they even endure the sun with head bared, trodden on, pushed, tightly packed together and subjected to countless inconveniences, and yet feel as though they are lolling about in a meadow…

“Even if Pentecost has gone by, you see, still the feast-day has not gone by: every gathering is a feast-day. What is the evidence for this?   The very words of Christ, in which he says, 'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Now when Christ is in the midst of those assembled together, what further proof of this feast do you for that is more convincing?   Where there is instruction and prayers, blessings of the fathers and attention to divine laws, meeting of brethren and binding together in true love, converse with God and God's speaking to human beings, how could it be other than a feast-day and festal assembly? It is not size of the assembly, after all, that normally makes feast-days but the virtue of those assembled, not the riches of the garments but the charm of the piety, not the extravagance of the banquet but the care of the soul; the most important thing to celebrate, you see, is a good conscience. .....I want to pursuade you not to be discouraged or downcast at the small numbers of those assembled here now. We are not interested, you understand in seeing a large number of bodies in church but a large number of listeners… We shall set the meal before you with the same enthusiasm today as well... much more should this be our attitude in the case of God, and we should think that doing anything not pleasing to Him is worse than any hell.”