p. 180 | HOW FAR? by M. E. Dunham

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1900

HOW FAR?

By M. E. Dunham

M. E. Dunham, D.D., LL. D., in Christian Work.

The Christian religion was never more prevalent in the world than it is to-day, but the sanctity of the old-fashioned piety is passing away.

The name of Jesus Christ was never more honored by public profession and acknowledged allegiance than at the present, but the spirit of Christ in the deeper channels of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice flows with increasing sluggishness.

The popularity of the church and of membership therein is fairly holding its own, but the significance of the church and of church membership as the home and family of “the saints made perfect” is growing dim to general perception.

“The narrow way” that leads to everlasting life has, in public thought, greatly widened, so that hosts go in thereat, while the “broad way” that leads to death has been proportionately narrowed, and fewer are reckoned as walking therein.

In former times the followers of Christ were known by their separation from the world and the ways of the world; but now, among the more cultured and moral portion of society, the distinction between the Christian and the worldling is ascertainable only by reference to the record book of the church.

Once entrance into the church was based on repentance and faith, a change of heart, and a radical transformation of character into newness of life; but now a professed acceptance of the doctrines of Christ and a fairly moral life suffice.

We have reached the stage of religion made easy, with the way of religious living leveled down to the grade of the world. At the card table, in the dance, through scores of amusements that were once considered sinful,—some of them exceedingly sinful,—the Christian and the worldling join hands in the best of comradeship and with an equally hearty gusto.

These facts are operating as causes, bringing about what we see taking place in the churches at the present time—the casting out of the rigid, stern, severe old to make room for the more profuse, easy-going new. If the causes are valid and justifiable, may not the results be valid and justifiable also? Yet the fact should not be overlooked that reactions and even reactionary modifications are dangerous, lest they be carried to extremes; and may it not be a question worthy of careful consideration as to whether or not this reaction has passed already beyond the danger point? At least, we begin to see a loss of power in the church; the loss of the old-fashioned Holy Ghost power that moved and melted human hearts in the heat of its fervor; and to this may be added a growing lack of that childlike simplicity, tender humility, lovable sweetness, which are the sanctified outgrowth of hearts that have been plowed by a sense of guilt, harrowed by thorough repentance, and sown with seeds of a new and divine life. Have we received anything that can compensate the church and the world for such loss and lack?

Christianity is the only hope for this world, the one panacea for its ills; woe be to the world if through the spirit of any age it lose its vital grip on the world!