p. 6 | The Most Effective Weapon

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 3, 1910

The Most Effective Weapon

INFIDELITY and the Higher Criticism are making inroads in the world to-day, not because their arguments have not been successfully met so far as logic and reason are concerned, but because the great mass of professed Christians fail to exemplify the power of the gospel in their own lives. Speaking of this, P. S. Hensen, D. D., says:—

It isn't the Higher Critics that are destroying the influence of the church—and I have no more sympathy with the destructive critics than you have. The trouble is not with the Higher Critics, but the lower living of Christians. The fog of Higher Criticism is not to be dissipated by firing great guns at it. That only adds to the fog the smoke of the powder. You can dissipate the fog only by the sunbeams of Christian living. I'll wear myself out preaching the evidences of Christianity, and some cross-grained representative of Christianity in the pews will spoil the whole inside of ten minutes after I get through. The strongest influence which can be pitted against infidel cavil and the sophistries of Higher Criticism is the influence of a godly Christian life.