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Blind Leaders

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 30, 1908

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 31.

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Blind Leaders

Our Saviour speaks of leaders whose inability to perform the work of leading aright lay in their blindness in spiritual matters. He calls them “blind leaders of the blind.” We see frequent illustrations to-day of men attempting to lead, who are blinder than those whom they set themselves to guide. The following incident, as related by one of our exchanges, will illustrate the point in this matter:—
A New Jersey minister, in an effort to induce the male members of his congregation to attend church more regularly, recently announced that he would have a service for men only, during which they might smoke their pipes and cigars. Last Sunday was the day on which the first service of the kind was to be conducted, and the minister and his supporters expected a large audience. When the church-bell had ceased tolling, however, there was present even a smaller number of the male members of the congregation than usual, and the pastor was compelled to admit that the experiment was a failure.
The experiment may have been a failure so far as the New Jersey pastor’s scheme was concerned, but not wholly so, for it demonstrated the fact that even men who do not regularly attend church have more respect for the house of God than they are given credit for. The inconsistency of appearing in a place of worship while indulging in a habit which merely gratifies the appetite, for the purpose of obtaining spiritual assistance and guidance, evidently appealed to the men who stayed away, if not to the minister. And this phase of the matter is emphasized by the refusal of those who did attend, to smoke when they were invited to do so.
The incense of the pipe and cigar are as much out of place in the house of God as was the strange fire which Nadab and Abihu sought to offer in the sanctuary of old. The Lord’s rebuke to them ought to have taught that pastor and all pastors that the Lord looks with abhorrence upon all efforts to mingle the sacred and the profane. The church of God never should be regarded as a rendezvous for the gratifiers of carnal appetite.