Yea and Nay | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 41.

Yea and Nay.

OUR modern civilization is in nothing more menaced than by a prevailing indifference to truth. This saying yes when yes is not meant, this uttering of no when no is not intended, this far too general habit of insincerity, have become the bane of society in this nineteenth century as certainly, if not to the same extent, as it was in the first Christian century. It is the bane and the blight of business, of politics, of our social life generally. The speech of men and of women is indeed yes and no, but too often with inverted meanings. Language is used too commonly as an element of concealment rather than the instrument of making a given matter plain, and even luminous, if need be. The result is seen in manifold alienations, misapprehensions, and misunderstandings. There are fears and feuds where instead there should be harmony and hope. For howsoever adroit or ingenious or plausible speech may be, as it often is, there is and there can be no substitute for the unequivocal yea and the alike unequivocal nay, which Jesus Christ enjoins shall rule and shall be decisive in the words of men.—Watchman.