“A General Slump of Conscience”
At the recent Christian Endeavor Convention held in Baltimore, Rev. Washington Gladden, of Columbus, Ohio, who has been speaking some very plain and wholesome things about John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil methods of money making, delivered an address upon “The Education of Conscience.” In the course of his address, as reported in the daily press, Dr. Gladden said:— There is a tremendous amount of uneducated or miseducated conscience in this country to-day. People in good society—people who are members of our churches—people who are known as our leading citizens—are doing things which are horribly wrong; and neither do their own consciences protest, nor is there any moral sense in the community which adequately disapproves their wrong-doing. The things which have been going on of late can only be explained upon the theory of a general slump of conscience in financial circles, and in political circles, and in society, and most deplorable of all, in the church itself. The one thing that this country wants to-day is not better laws or better methods of administration, but a clearing up and toning up of the consciences of its citizens; and while the young people of our churches are considering what culture could do for them, and what they are going to do with their culture, I hope that they will give heed, first of all, to this primary need of the training of their consciences, so that they shall speak promptly and decisively upon the practical moral questions with which they will have to deal. What will clear up and tone up the consciences of the citizens of this country and of every other country? Is it not the message of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus? The Lord foresaw the condition of things in these last days, and he has sent a message which is calculated to meet the needs of the time, but as it was with the generation which witnessed the first advent, so it is now,—the people will not give heed to the instruction. Iniquity abounds, and every day adds some fresh revelation of crime to the bloody list; but those who should be proclaiming God’s way of deliverance for this generation are setting aside that gospel which is “the power of God unto salvation,” and are preaching a gospel of self-salvation based upon tradition and speculation. On every hand the evidences are multiplying that “Babylon is fallen,” and the call, clear and strong, should be raised, “Come out of her, my people.”