The Lord’s Day and Christian Decline
A CORRESPONDENT wrote a letter to the Church Standard, which was printed in that paper, protesting against the ground taken in the editorial on “The Lord’s Day,” to which reference is made in another column. The writer of the letter seems to have a clearer view of the real cause of the present spiritual declension than the average observer. He says:— No wonder that good men deplore the tendency to irreligion, decay of morals, and loss of high inspirations in art and literature; but are not these the natural outcome of teachings which lower the authority of the Holy Scriptures, allow of possible error in our Lord’s own words, countenance laxity in the observance of his day, and regard the past generation of his followers as in effect lacking the promised guidance by the Holy Spirit into all truth? Are we not told that “a good tree can not bring forth evil fruit,” and “by their fruits ye shall know them”? It is plain that there can be no genuine reform until there is a return to first principles concerning the Bible and the fundamentals of Christianity, but when this is done, it will inevitably result in the acceptance of the third angel’s message and in the observance of the true Sabbath of the Lord.