p. 10 | Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 16, 1912

Note and Comment

Increase of Church Machinery

A MACHINE, however complicated or wisely designed, possesses no inherent power in itself. There must be the application of some motive power, like steam or electricity, to cause the wheels to revolve and the levers to move. So it is with the church of God. Organization of itself will accomplish but little. There may be wheels within wheels, as brought to view in the vision of Ezekiel, but it is the spirit within the wheels that produces results.

In proportion as the church of God departs from Christ, machinery is multiplied, and new organizations brought into existence. Speaking of this, the Journal and Messenger says:—

The multiplication of religious machinery goes on apace. . . . In addition to the regular church services, the prayer-meeting, and the missionary and other congregational societies, . . . within the last few years we have had the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, with its elaborate organization, the Forward Movement in missions, and the Brotherhood Movement, which had hardly got started when

reign, . . . undertook a very great work, that is, to build of himself the temple of God, and make it larger.'—'Antiquities,' book 15, chap. 11.

The eighteenth year of his reign, from his conquest of Jerusalem and the death of its former king, Antigonus, was the year A. U. [year of Rome] 735. (See Schaff's "History of the Christian Church," Vol. I, page 126.) Forty-six years added brings us to A. U. 781, or A. D. 28. Just the method of the Jews in reckoning their forty-six years of work on the temple may not be agreed upon; but Farrar says: "As the temple was begun in [the month] Kislev, the exact date is probably A. D. 28."—'Life of Christ,' chap. 13, note.

it was in a measure crowded into the background by the Men and Religion Forward Movement, which is just now shouting a little louder than the others to get our attention. This is not the end of the catalogue, but rather only the beginning. New organizations for special purposes are being launched or proposed almost every week.

It is well to remember, not alone with reference to the great religious world, but as applied to ourselves as Seventh-day Adventists, that it is only as God operates through organization and official position that these agencies contribute to his glory and the promotion of his work. Let us realize that the spirit of the living creature must be in the wheels if the wheels are to do effective service for God.