No Improvement by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 15, 1883

No Improvement.

By Editor

The editor of the Christian at Work says:—

“Socrates was a heathen philosopher. He lived and died nearly twenty-three hundred years ago. And yet his reasoning about the future life has scarcely been improved upon by those who have followed him.”

We are sorry that this statement is true. By far the larger portion of Christian professors are following Socrates and Plato, in what is one of the principal doctrines of the church. Is it not a humiliating confession? The apostle John, speaking of Christ, said, “In him was life;” Socrates said that in every man there is life, independent of any other being; and men calling themselves Christians accept the saying of the heathen philosopher, and reject that of inspiration. Do Christ's words, “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life,” apply only to the Jews? Are they not as applicable now as then?

There is another thing in which the Christian world of to-day have not improved on heathenism. More than fifteen hundred years ago, Constantine, a heathen ruler, issued an edict commanding rest on “the venerable day of the sun.” This was the first recognition of the Sunday; but the church soon adopted this heathen practice also. So then we find that Christians are indebted to heathenism for their two most highly cherished doctrines.

The early disciples were called Christians because they were followers of Christ. But the later disciples are followers of heathen philosophers and rulers. By what name ought they to be called? Christ taught neither of these things. “He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself so to walk, even as He walked.”