Blasphemy Rebuked by Editor

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

Blasphemy Rebuked.

By Editor

The Jewish temple, “Gates of Hope,” was recently dedicated in New York, and in the dedicatory sermon, Dr. Browne, the rabbi, used the following language:—

“This congregation has taken a house that has been used by the Methodist Episcopal worshipers, and therefore, in business parlance, this is simply a re-opening. The old firm consisted of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Son and the Holy Ghost have stepped down and out, but the business will still be conducted by the Father—the old head of the firm; One you always have trusted. The same goods will be offered for sale. We shall continue to deal in charity, brotherly love, and all the virtues, and we appeal to all our old customers to continue their trade.”

This has been widely quoted by the secular press, with the evident thought that it was a witty speech. We are therefore the more pleased to see the following manly protest from the San Francisco Jewish Times:—

“We submit if this were merely meant for wit, it was entirely out of place and out of taste. If it may be called wit, it is of a very coarse and vulgar character. It seems to us to be an attempt at sensation at the cost of decency and propriety. Surely it is not practicing ‘charity, brotherly love, and all the virtues,’ to scorn and ridicule those things held most sacred by our neighbors and fellow-citizens. Sensation in the pulpit is greatly to be condemned, but how much worse is it when connected with what some might call brutality. No man has a right to injure his neighbor’s feelings any more than he has a right to injure his property. We feel it our duty to express our hearty condemnation of these words of Dr. Browne. Such a speech on such an occasion, and in such a place, with such solemn surroundings, will find no approval among right thinking men. Its tone is bad, and its tendency worse. His remarks will have little effect in composing the asperities that now exist in the community where they were uttered, or in any other.”