ANOTHER WORD FOR THE DECALOGUE.
By Editor
We feel like carefully gathering up and preserving the good words which we still occasionally hear from the lips of popular religious teachers in behalf of the commandments of God, the moral law, as embodied in the decalogue. Such expressions are more and more rarely heard, as the attention of the people is beginning to be called to the conclusion which inevitably follows, if the perpetuity of the fourth commandment is admitted. We anticipate their cessation altogether when Christendom shall become fully aroused to the inexorable issue before it, and which is speedily approaching, on the Sabbath question. These will do good service then. The Independent of Jan. 30, 1879, publishes a lecture from Joseph Cook, in the “Prelude” to which Mr. Cook says:— Thus it happens that, with one in six of the population in churches in this country, there is a percentage of church members who do not appear to have learned to their finger-tips that portion of the decalogue which says, “Thou shalt not steal.” [Applause.] The world, which applauds this sentiment, will not unite with the church to keep such men from doing mischief as church-members, or aid in the expulsion of such members from the church. This same world which applauds will not unite with the church to keep such men from getting in. The world that sneers at the plant of the church is the soil out of which the church grows, and the sap in that plant is as good as the sap in the sods. [Applause.] The haughtiness of the world toward the church is self-condemnation. If, on this Christian platform, I am to think aloud, I must say, that I have little hope for either the world or the church unless the church within the church expels, or keeps from ever getting in, men who have not learned the decalogue. [Applause.]