The Delirium of Change
By M. M.
“FRANCE makes fashions, Germany makes dyestuffs, Ireland makes linens; but America makes everything—pins and automobiles, toothpicks and air planes, slums and religion. In the production of the last named commodity, America is especially noted; and she has no exclusion laws. . . . Some fifty new religions have appeared in America since the opening of the twentieth century.” Thus writes Mrs. Howard B. McAfee in the November issue of the Christian Statesman. The writer proceeds to expose what she considers as one of the many new religions that have sprung up in this country. We realize, with Mrs. McAfee, that these growing cults are more and more a menace to the progress of true faith and morals in America. It should be a cause of alarm to all thinking people, that every year, thousands of men and women leave the faith of their fathers, to follow some cunningly devised teaching that may appeal to their whim or fancy. The delirium of change seems to have maddened men everywhere; and “some people change their religion as easily as they adopt the new mode of dress, and as eagerly.” But the most striking fact is that, during the first sixteen years of the new century, fifty religions have sprung up in the United States. This is a record unsurpassed by any previous century, and it stands out as one of the most literal fulfillments of Christ’s advent prophecy as recorded in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew. He said: “There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” There is only one door of escape for us, and that is in the word “elect.” From a comparison of other scriptures, it is clear that all who find salvation through the atonement of Christ’s blood, and accept the gift of life through Him, are numbered with the “elect”; and since these favored few base their faith in the word of God alone, they will be impregnable to the army of false Christs and deceiving prophets that are sweeping down upon our modern life. The Bible test is: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8: 20. M. M.