p. 11 | Babylon Is Fallen by A. R. Bell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 7, 1903

Babylon Is Fallen

By A. R. Bell

A. R. BELL.

A DAY or two ago a representative of the Philadelphia Press interviewed a number of ministers of various denominations regarding the observance of Lent. The statement of Rev. Joseph A. Seiss, a Lutheran minister, is worthy of attention.

He says: “I have noted in recent years that the observance is becoming more general in our denomination, as well as in others. In fact, forms of religion seem to be gaining. We are all approaching, in some degree, the Roman Catholic. Not that our basic principles have been changed at all. Not that our belief has been modified. It is simply the change in expression.

“Baptists and Methodists, I note, as well as the Lutherans, are leaning more toward the ritualistic. Why it is I can not see. Science may be responsible in a degree. Biblical interpretation has been aided by excavations in Babylonia, in Egypt, in Palestine. Knowledge has increased. The world is more cultured, and as the people become more refined, the need of an appeal to the senses increases. And ceremonials, vestments, high-class music,—pageants,—lend dignity and impressiveness.

“This observance of feasts and fasts, of saints’ days and martyrs’ days, in my opinion, is not harmful. It increases the veneration of worshipers for the church. It brings them in closer sympathy with its institutions.

“The church as a whole is a mighty instrument. All denominations, whatsoever their specific tenets, have one common ground—the desire to promote the love of good, the inculcation of moral ideas; and whatever it may be that will draw them closer together, whether it be the discoveries of science, whether it be the observance of ceremonies, or any other thing upon which various religious bodies may come together and work for the common cause without antagonisms, is for the good of all mankind.”

Truly, “forms of religion” are “gaining,” but the power of religion is waning. The church has “so spread out, under the inflation of the rich and ungodly,” that its refinement (?) needs no longer the appeal of the Spirit of God to heart and life, but in its stead, like paganism of old, like Roman Catholicism today, “ceremonials, vestments, high-class music,—pageants,” are installed to “appeal to the senses,” and “lend dignity and impressiveness.”

Notice also what Rev. Seiss says concerning “the observance of ceremonies, or any other thing upon which various religious bodies may come together and work for the common cause without antagonisms.”

There is one “thing” they all agree on already, and will continue to agree on, and that is Sunday observance and its enforcement; and truly do they all believe already that in pressing the claims of this institution, they are working “for the good of all mankind.”

With the “observance of feasts and fasts, of saints’ days and martyrs’ days,” of “ceremonials, vestments, high-class music,—pageants,”—for the sole purpose of appealing to the senses, and in which they “are all approaching . . . the Roman Catholic,” how flat seems the statement that in all this their basic principles have not been changed, nor has their belief been modified.

Said the Rev. Chas. Wood, of the Second Presbyterian Church: “Not within recent years has the tendency to observe the lenten season been so general among Presbyterians. This feeling seems to be prevalent among all Christian churches at this time. I feel that it will result in universal good, and people are wise to take advantage of it.

“We will hold Ash Wednesday services in the Second Presbyterian church in the evening, with special music. . . . Each Friday afternoon and Wednesday evening there will be special lenten services. . . . It may be that the increased observance of Lent is one of the indications that all branches of the church are drawing nearer together, accepting from each other the best that each has to give.

“Perhaps the day is not far distant when there shall be in Philadelphia only one church besides the Roman Catholic Church, which will be called, as one of our clergymen has lately suggested, ‘the

Church of God,’ of which there will be various forms and phases named Episcopalian, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Quaker, and on down the long list of denominations.”

In that day surely they will have all drawn “closer together;” they will have all found the one “thing” through which they can “come together and work for the common cause without antagonisms;” and the American Catholic Church will work not “for the good of all mankind,” but for the best interests of the “holy Roman Catholic Church.”

The statement of Rev. Chas. Wood brings forcibly to mind the remark of the venerable Dr. Patton, who for so long a time was president of Princeton College. In a commencement address, the doctor, speaking on the fundamental principles of Presbyterianism, said: “There is a certain tendency in the church to change or withdraw from them. Some Presbyterians have gone so far as to observe Good Friday. It has come to this, that the question is not, How soon will Presbyterians observe holy week, but how soon will they have holy water?”

Surely Babylon is fallen, and over her door posts is inscribed the word “Ichabod,” and the cry is heard, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”