The Old Faith

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 15, 1910

RECENTLY a layman of Philadelphia, writing to the Presbyterian, speaks of the work for the submerged classes in our large American cities. He feels that the need of this class of people, as of all peoples outside of Christ, is the old-fashioned gospel:—

The greatest need of these unfortunate people is the gospel, the real gospel. They see sin stripped of all its disguises, a savage monster ready to destroy them; and when a preacher goes among them, saying that sin is only misunderstanding, only imperfect development, they count him either a liar or a fool. Their trouble is too serious for the dainty trifler lisping esthetic phrases. They are in desperate need, and want the help of the strong Son of God. The gospel can do more for the toiling, suffering masses than free baths, picture galleries, playgrounds, and the whole list of fashionable substitutes. These things have some value; but it is amazing that any Christian minister should put his main dependence upon such subordinate aids when he might use the greatest power in the world,—the same gospel which, in Luther's time, saved ignorant, drunken Saxony, which tamed the berserker rage of the Northmen, and raised the fierce clansmen of Scotland to the highest plane of civilization.

Commenting upon this testimony, the Lutheran Witness of June 23 says:—

This testimony emphasizes anew the old truth. The times have changed, and the conditions under which men live, since the days when the gospel saved drunken Saxony. But the spiritual needs of man are now what they were then,—he must be born again through the means of grace. Far be it from any Christian to discourage efforts to ameliorate the temporal lot of those born or sunken in an atmosphere of squalor or vice. But farther still be it from him to think that his work is done until he has brought to these perishing souls the message of deliverance from sin through the blood of the Lamb of God.

No human substitute will take the place of Heaven's remedy for sin-sick souls. When God instituted the gospel of Jesus Christ for the salvation of man, he provided a system applicable to every age and every nationality, and to every condition of mankind. It alone is the power of God unto salvation in reaching lost humanity.