p. 7 | Poisoning the Wells by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 11, 1912

Poisoning the Wells

By C. M. S.

NINE years ago Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, editor of the Missionary Review of the World, was in England conducting a series of Bible studies. While there, Dr. Pierson made some investigations as to the progress of the higher criticism and the results of its growth. Concerning these investigations he said:—

It [the higher criticism] has been growing more arrogant and reckless, until it has attacked the incarnation and resurrection of our Lord—the two pillars which support the whole fabric of our faith. Some who went with the higher critics for a while had halted and turned back, finding their path to lead toward infidelity. It seems strange to

find positions advocated by Christian ministers and theological professors which a century ago were regarded as blasphemous, so that Tom Paine and Voltaire are now becoming the church’s leaders.

That is the road along which the higher criticism is leading all its adherents. It is hardly just to Christianity, however, to say that Christian ministers are the ones who are teaching these doctrines of infidelity known as the higher criticism. They may call themselves such, may wear the livery of the sacred calling, and speak from the desk dedicated to the preaching of the Word; but in promulgating such disruptive and destructive teachings, they prove themselves the enemies of the cross of Christ. They put unbelief in the place of faith, and turn the feet of their hearers into the broad way that leads to ruin.

It is doubtless true, as Dr. Pierson then said, that some who saw the goal of unbelief toward which the higher criticism was seeking to lead, turned back; but it is also true that the great tendency in the popular churches has not been that way; and the years that have passed since then have demonstrated the ruinous character of the seeds of that sowing. The tendency has been to follow it on to its hopeless goal. For instance, a minister of Troy, N. Y., preached a sermon recently which was declared to have “harmonized scientifically with Huxley and Darwin.” He cast reproach upon the Bible, upon the Author of the Bible, and upon the believers in the Bible, and then asserted that “the Christ of yesterday was a dead Christ.” The newspapers which reported the sermon (which might have been delivered by Paine or Voltaire much more appropriately than by a clergyman) stated that he was very evidently saturated with the higher criticism, and the New Thought; and that “the evident enjoyment of the immense audience suggested that the revolution of religious sentiment had penetrated the pews as well as this pulpit.”

This penetration of the pews by the spirit of infidelity as a result of the teachings of the higher critics is seen wherever such false shepherds are given charge of a flock. Concerning this, Watchword and Truth says: “The saddest part of it is that these strange iconoclasts and unbelievers are the men whom the people want to hear.” But that is one of the signs which tell us we are in the last days, when “the love of many” is to “wax cold;” a time concerning which Christ himself could ask, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” With the higher criticism in the pulpit, and its fruit—infidelity—in the pew; with the same teachings and the same doubtings in universities, colleges, and theological seminaries; with a multitude of clergy preaching for salaries rather than for souls, and tickling the ears of sinners when they should be bearing witness against sin; with the world worshiping at the shrine of gold, and few voices raised to warn of impending judgment,—we may know with the utmost degree of certainty that when the Son of man cometh, faith will be scarce and faithful teachers scarcer. It is a time of grave danger for those who are not “rooted and grounded” in the faith. Therefore, “stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” C. M. S.