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The Essential Thing

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Nov 26, 1903

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 80, No. 47.

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The Essential Thing

By Editor

Editorial

The Essential Thing

WHAT the world most needs to-day is that it should come to its end. It can not be saved; it can not be stayed from the down grade which marks its course year by year. That “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived,” is a prophecy of the Scriptures which is being fulfilled, and will be fulfilled to the end. “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together,” waiting for the redemption. The future world of peace and righteousness can come only through the end of “this present evil world.” The earth is weighted down with sin and misery, and the dark burden is ever growing larger. War and oppression, famine and pestilence, poverty and crime, reap a world-wide harvest of victims. What an appalling picture, could it be presented before the eye in its entirety! What is wanted now is not something to make this world tolerable, but to end it; not merely something to ameliorate its ills, but to terminate them. In other words, what is needed on the part of the Christian church is not merely humanitarian and philanthropic work for the people, but the earnest doing of that which must be done to bring our Lord’s return. Sanitariums to treat the sick, and other benevolent institutions to assist those in misfortune are necessary, and do a truly Christian work; but so far as mere philanthropy is concerned, this world with its load of ills might go on indefinitely. The popular churches are doing much Christian work of a humanitarian kind, but they are not doing the one chief thing that the Christian church should do, the thing which will answer the prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” The third angel’s message, warning against the worship of the beast and of his image, must be proclaimed throughout the world, bringing its inhabitants to take their stand for or against the truth, and then it can be and will be said in heaven, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: . . . and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.” The mission of the church now is not merely to combat the reign of sin and Satan, but to terminate it. There is nothing so important now as that which is to bring the world to its end.
L. A. S.