p. 25 | OUR TIMES by Jos. Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 27, 1876

OUR TIMES.

By Jos. Clarke

We live in an age of great light, yet it is an age of great spiritual darkness. It is an age of Bibles and good books, yet the bad books outnumber the good a hundredfold. Numerous learned and talented men are devoted to the study of the Bible, yet few of them apply its teachings, as they should, directly to our times.

Religious teachers abound, and churches are built in all localities. Every Sunday joyful crowds are called to the worship of God by the musical chimes of silvery pealing bells, which send their sweet tones abroad, over hill and valley and plain. Answering to the call, the young and the old, the sober and the gay, the rich and the poor, assemble, when the weather is fine, and the Bible is explained to them, often in such a manner as to captivate and to please.

Schools and institutions of learning of the highest order are open to all, and the best opportunities are offered to such as wish to improve their minds. The rail-road, the post-office, the telegraph, improved methods of carrying on business operations by means of utilizing steam power, and many useful inventions, are all combining to render this an age of wonderful progress. And our own nation, which has experienced much of the benefit of modern improvements, has grown so rapidly that it seems sometimes, like Jonah's gourd, or like a mushroom, the product of a day and a night.

But with all this dazzling display of talent, learning, and wealth, what do we behold? An age of corruption, an age of blasphemy, and of covetousness such as puts to the blush the worst ages of Greece or Rome. This, the very age for humility and gratitude to God, is one of pride and ingratitude. This time of prosperity and peace is spent in extravagance and luxury, and in preparation for war. This age, rich in its commentaries on Scripture, its fulfillments of prophecy, is an age abounding in scoffers, who say, “Where is the promise of his coming?”

Now, just as the world is ready to cast out its dead, the living are preparing for a long and permanent possession here. Now, as the world is trembling beneath its load of sin, as it is ready to fall, to be turned upside down, and its inhabitants to be destroyed—just at this time all are lulled into a feeling of security by the song of peace and safety.

Just now the ministers of ten thousand pulpits, who should utter truths startling, sublime, and solemn, truths which would awaken and alarm the lukewarm, and cause the land to tremble with repentance for its crimes, are all silent upon the most prominent Bible truths and prophecies. Silent, I said; would it were no worse than that, but the truth compels me to say that many, and indeed most, of them scoff at the message for our time. No Pharisee called more loudly for his people to crucify their Messiah than do these ministers for the crucifixion of the prophecies and the truths connected with them. Last-day reforms and last-day revivals are in bad odor with the popular churches; while spiritualism, the modern form of witchcraft, is often embraced, as an aid to the “peace-and-safety” cry.

Great religious movements of the most doubtful nature are hailed as the harbingers of the golden age, while the truths of fulfilled prophecy, and the solemn warnings of the prophetic word, are treated with neglect, or with open opposition or contempt.

Is there not a call for prayer, faith, and labor now? Shall we compose ourselves to rest, while the world is asleep? Is this a time to acquire wealth, or to hoard earthly treasure? Shall the cause of truth languish now? Who believes the prophecies, yet withholds his hoarded store from the cause of God? If we believe this work is of God, let us unloose the strings of our purses, and give while it will do some good.

Let not the rich leave the work to be done by the poor, and by those in moderate circumstances. No; the work is vast. Let the rich give like princes, and like kings. It will not be lost. Open your hearts and your iron safes, and send on your fortunes beforehand. Do you believe the third angel's message? No doubt you do; but do you practically believe it?

There are men who are worth from twenty to fifty thousand dollars, or even more, in this faith; now who would suspect it from the list of donations?

Not long ago, the farmers and others of this county pledged twenty thousand dollars in a few hours to sustain a county-seat case. What was that suit to this cause? A very nothing. Can you not invest in the Lord's work?

Do not fear. Our General Conference Committee will be careful of the means put into their hands, and use it to the best advantage, without per cent to agents. God will have it entered upon your cash account in Heaven; and you will be ten times as likely to follow your cash, as your cash will be to follow you.

Jos. CLARKE.