THIS GENERATION by Wm. Penniman

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 14, 1881

THIS GENERATION.

By Wm. Penniman

BY WM. PENNIMAN.

The following quotations will show the condition of the entire religious world, also the fulfillment of Luke 18:8, and that Christ's coming is near at hand:—

“Ernest Renan says the French working people are profoundly skeptical. Father Hyacinth says very many are Spiritualists—a faith closely allied to skepticism in this country.”—Independent, Aug. 28, 1879.

The Interior (Chicago) declares that “the enemy—the Rationalists—have possession of nine-tenths of the secular press, besides their own avowed organs.”—Independent, Dec. 11, 1879.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1877, Rev. Dr. Henderson, of San Francisco, Cal., said: “Vice can now out-vote virtue. There never was a greater blasphemy than vox populi, vox Dei. This would be true, if the people were virtuous; but being vicious—the majority—the true maxim would be, vox populi, vox diaboli.” —Signs of the Times (Cal.), Dec. 11, 1879.

Rev. S. J. Stewart of Fitchburg, Mass., says that “New England orthodoxy is a mixture of Puritanism, revivalism, tradition, rationalism, and Antinomianism. To put it in a more practical form, its oracles are like an illustrious theological professor or two, a religious newspaper, a certain noted lecturer, and a great revivalist.”—Church Union, Dec. 13, 1879.

An editorial entitled, “Days of Doubt,” in the Christian Union, Jan. 10, 1880, asks: “How shall we help dispel the cloud of irreligion now settling down upon our otherwise blessed country?” We read again, “To the thoughtful it seems that all the world lies entrenched in Doubting Castle; for does not the so-called highest culture condemn all belief in the supernatural or superstitious?” And the same paper says that by the pens of Ingersoll's and Tyndall's disciples “the foundations of faith are being sapped, and the pulpit alone does not appear to stem or turn the tide of Ritualism now sweeping over the land.”

“There is something intensely sad to a thoughtful mind in the drift of the European mind away from religion. In Germany, the leading intellectual classes utterly ignore it. Science and the interpretations of nature have made supernaturalism seem a dream of the past, a myth.”—Christian Union, Sept., 1872.

“Rev. Dr. Presence, in a letter to the Christian World, laments that the political state of France is an image of its ecclesiastical condition. Protestantism is utterly disorganized. The Reformed Church is divided into two parties.”—Christian Guardian, Jan. 23, 1878.

The Alliance, July 19, 1879, speaking of the spread of skepticism, says: “Rationalism is almost the national belief of Germany. France is full of infidelity. Skepticism is found on every hand. The problem of how to deal with skepticism is the one that now presses upon the Christian thinker.”

“In England, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham, in a pastoral letter, January, 1878, says: “The old Catholic traditions are fast dying out, and we have free-thinking disbelief in Christianity and open infidelity. The most depraved systems of atheism, invented by the most corrupt imaginations of Germany and France, have found their sponsors in England.”

A London letter to the Cincinnati Enquirer says: “Seven-tenth of the divinity professors, teachers, students, and others, at Oxford University, believe not in a devil, or future rewards and punishments, and the remainder doubt the existence of God. It is a farce to fancy that Oxford is the seat of learned Christianity.”—Boston Journal, Jan. 9, 1878.

A recent number of the Illustrated Christian Weekly says: “It cannot be denied that in the moral and religious tone of society at large, all the world over, there has been a deterioration, a failure to respond to former remedies of increasing and notable character. The average Christian conscience has lost much of its tenderness, and does not hesitate to act upon principles which even a generation since would have accepted with great hesitation.” Then it solemnly inquires: “Is there, then, some general cause which is affecting the world morally and spiritually, as well as physically? Are we drawing nigh to the ‘last days’ when ‘perilous times shall come?’”

“The decrease of theological students in the universities of Germany is so great that there is an insufficiency of candidates for the pulpit. In Berlin there are over eight hundred thousand Protestants, but only thirty-four churches and ninety-five ministers. Twenty thousand persons are buried every year without any religious service.”—Religious Exchange.

“In Switzerland matters are not in a good state. Rationalism has cut deeply into all the Cantonal Protestant churches. Its fruit is seen in the scarcity of candidates for the ministry. The church has literally no creed, and is honey-combed with heresy and unbelief.”—Correspondence N. Y. Observer, October, 1878.

From Japan, Rev. Mr. Davis writes: “We are in the midst of a mighty battle. It is a battle between Christianity and infidelity. The thinking minds in Japan, the scholars and officials, are becoming overwhelmingly infidel Epicurean. There is not a theory that has been advanced by opposers and disbelievers of Christianity which is not rife here. Darwin, Huxly, Spencer, Mill, Strauss, Renan, Buckle, etc., are read and advocated. One meets them everywhere.”—Boston Journal, May 25, 1878.

Theodore Cuyler, speaking of the dearth of revivals this year (1881), says: “The dearth of revivals has left the great Evangelical bodies of the land almost at a stand-still as to numbers. The falling off in church attendance over the land is undeniable. All attempts to conceal or falsify such facts are both cowardly and criminal.”—Independent.

Talmage, in a sermon published in The Christian Herald and Signs of Our Times, Dec. 23, 1880, having recently made a tour through many of the cities, speaks thus of the spiritual condition of our country: “What is the religious condition of Pittsburg, I asked? They answered, dead. Of Cincinnati? Dead. What is the religious condition of the cities of Virginia? They answered, dead. Of Lexington? Dead. Here and there we can see a few struggling into the kingdom of God, but the vast multitude going right on their way. An eminent clergyman of Kentucky told me during the last week, ‘If some sweeping revival does not pass over the country, the church of God will go under.’ I found beautiful churches wherever I went, rapturous music, eloquent ministers, but the old work of saving souls seems to be going out of fashion. Mr. Talmage has only given the condition of a few of the cities and of a small portion of our land. Is it not so in nearly all the large and small cities all over the world? Is it any wonder that vital godliness and the revival spirit is dying out, when fashionable worship is conducted as a writer in the New York Tribune represents: “Now the worshipers one after another glide in; silks rattle, plumes wave, satins glisten, diamonds glitter, and scores of forty-dollar handkerchiefs shake out their perfumed odors! What absurdity to preach the gospel of the lowly Nazarite to such a set! The clergyman knows better than to do so. He values his fat salary and handsome parsonage too highly. So with a velvety tread he walks all around the ten commandments, places the downiest pillow under the dying profligate's head, and ushers him with seraphic hymning into an upper-ten heaven.” We fear that Mr. Talmage and many other popular preachers do not see the cause of this great spiritual dearth. They do not seem to realize that the coming of the Lord “is near, even at the doors,” and that Satan has come down “having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” Rev. 12:12. This is why there is so little “faith on the earth.” We must strive harder to resist this power, and agonize more and more to enter in at the strait gate. Many preachers do not do this, and this is why they “walk all around the ten commandments.” The saying, “Like priest like people,” is generally true, so if the preachers walk around the law, the people will follow them.

Speaking of “What has not been Done,” the Life and Light for Woman, of October, 1880, says: “After eighteen hundred years, the proportion of professed disciples of Christ to the whole mass of mankind is no larger than when Constantine took the throne.” “Out of the sixty million of so-called Protestants, vast numbers are mere ritualists or formalists, coming into the church as they would go into the army, at a given age! Out of all nominal Christians on earth to-day, there may be ten million who give clear evidence of actual regeneration. Millions are depending on dead works or a dead faith. Four-fifths of the nominal membership of our churches add nothing to their real power, they are either a dead weight or a positive hindrance to the advance of the gospel. A most startling fact in our church life is absence of personal service in saving souls. Multitudes of professed disciples are absolutely neglecting the unsaved about them. The question of personal responsibility is scarcely considered. In hundreds of cases when the question is pointedly put, “Do you know that you have been instrumental in leading one soul to Christ?” it is only to hear the sad confession that no effort has been made in that direction. Irreligion and infidelity are alarmingly prevalent. A godless learning and atheistic science have never had so many and so distinguished disciples. What does this mean? It means that in the race for worldly treasure and pleasure, in the worship of mammon, in the loss of a vivid sense of the reality and verity of spiritual and eternal things, in the lack of power to prevail in prayer, in the loss of that concurrent witness of a holy life—mightier by far than any witness of the lips—we have lost power to convert souls!”

This is an age of astonishing worldliness, and it cannot be better expressed than in the language of Dr. Griffon: “The world! the world! the world! This is the object which engrosses every care; this is the supreme deity that is adored. Buy and sell, and get gain—out with the thoughts of death, away with the Judgment and Heaven—my farms, my merchandise; I will have them, though the earth tremble under my feet, and Heaven weeps blood over my head.”

Again, an age of great wealth or of heaping up of earthly treasures is to precede Christ's second coming. “Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” James 5:3. The prophet Isaiah, also speaking of the time that immediately preceded the setting up of Christ's kingdom, says: “Their land is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures.” A recent issue of the Pittsburg Dispatch, speaking of the “World's Gold,” says: “Thirty years ago the entire stock of gold coin was only a little more than $3,000,000,000; at present it is $705,500,000,000. But the increase was made during a few years, and the past decade has added little to the stock.” Think of the wonderful increase of $702,500,000,000 in thirty years, or during a few years! The poet has truly said, “Men toiled, and sweat, and bled for gold.”

We have quoted quite lengthily to show that the lack of faith is wide-spread in the world; we might also prove the thirst for gold or wealth just as extensive.

This is not only an age of doubt, worldliness, and covetousness, but also an age of crime of every description, and has been justly called the “age of murder” on account of the terrible increase of this crime in these “last days.” It may not be wide of the mark to say that one-half

or three-fourths of the matter of secular newspapers of the day are records of crime. It will take hundreds of volumes to record the woes of intemperance which is not only flooding and cursing our own land, but also the enlightened nations of the earth. Volumes to record the woes of licentiousness of every description. Volumes to set forth the evils of the dark dens of infamy, and of secret, soul-and-body destroying sins. Volumes to portray the evil influences of the damning flood of obscene books and papers which is spreading over the country. Volumes to record the wide-spread evils of ritualism, Romanism, Mormonism, and other wrong isms too numerous to enumerate. In short, it seems almost impossible to enumerate and classify the evils of the world. It might possibly have been done in the days of Noah when the “earth was filled with violence” (which implies very much), but now that “man has sought out many inventions,” it is a very difficult task.

But we must not forget to mention that this is a pleasure-seeking age. Oh, that it was confined only to the world; but alas! it embraces the professed followers of Jesus Christ. “Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,” is one of the sixteen sins which characterize hypocritical professors of Christianity, or those which have the “form of godliness but deny the power thereof,” in these “last days.” The theatre seems to be one of the chief sources of amusement to this class. Now that Dr. Talmage, one of the most popular preachers of the day, proposes to remedy the evil by calling it “The Spectacular” (it is not really an effort to reform the drama itself but to put gentlemen and women on the stage, also D. D.'s and deacons), no doubt the love for this kind of entertainments will rapidly increase; especially as he says (see New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, of Feb. 1, 1881, also Dr. Talmage's sermon on the “Spectacular” in Christian Herald, of Feb. 3, 1881): “Christianity is going to take full possession of this world and control its maxims, its laws, its literature, its science, and its amusements.” The Doctor has certainly forgotten, or ignores, what Pollock, the Christian poet, has said, in “The Course of Time,” p. 140:—

“The theater was, from the very first, The favorite haunt of sin, though honest men, Some very honest, wise, and worthy men, Maintained it might be turned to good account; And so perhaps it might, but never was, From first to last it was an evil place; And now such things were acted there, as made The devils blush; and from the neighborhood, Angels and holy men, trembling, retired.”

What would Pollock say now if he was alive, on seeing it “turned to good account,” and “holy men” the actors?

In regard to men being “lovers of their own selves,” it can not be better expressed than it is by a certain humorist (omitting the bad spelling and pronunciation): “The first thing a man thinks of is himself, the second thing he thinks of is himself again, and the third thing he thinks of is himself once more.”

(To be Continued.)