The Reason Why by J. O. Corliss

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 13, 1903

The Reason Why

By J. O. Corliss

J. O. Corliss

Some time ago there came into my hands an editorial from a Michigan paper, contrasting the past and the present in regard to the spirit in which men meet one another’s religious differences. The writer seemed to think that the present omens are indicative of a higher state of being, because men are now willing to let others hold religious tenets unlike their own without quarreling with them.

There is such a thing as a person’s being so intensely ambitious for worldly honors as to be entirely callous regarding all forms of religious faith, even though he may join in the regular ceremonies of church service. Besides, so long as others with varying faiths do not make themselves specially noticeable, but enter just as heartily into worldly enterprises as all their neighbors do, why should others feel called upon to oppose them? The daily lives of all are so nearly parallel that they can well agree to waive discussion of minor differences which have not the least effect on the life record of either class.

But let only one person in a community hold views radically differing from those of all his neighbors, especially when those views lead him to the conscientious practice of a course which reveals serious flaws in their religious theories, and they are at once annoyed. They may not at first make a serious matter of it, but if the activity of the “singular” personage brings others to the same practice as himself, then many are just as ready to quarrel with him as were those of years gone by.

These facts tend to show that the apparent willingness to tolerate supposed heterodoxy is not because of more goodness of heart than formerly among neighbors, but because those outside of their particular church fold are as religiously inactive as themselves. They also show that definite Bible teaching is not now to be tolerated by most people. The reason is not far to seek. Positive Bible teaching fastens upon men definite convictions which call for sacrifice, and few desire such a call. When religious teachers drop out of their work what some are pleased to call dogmatic instruction, the influence is quickly felt in the decline of personal effort in behalf of others; for then faith is displaced by reason.

Men are still living who can recall that members of the various churches were once taught Christian ethics through positive tenets of faith, and the lives of those taught after this fashion testified to their goodness of heart, their deep piety, and their constant readiness to assist others who were in distress. But these traits are not so noticeable now. Many are found who, while attending to the forms of godliness, deny the power thereof in their daily walk.

Nearly all denominations have, in a measure, trodden the same path, our own not excepted, though I am happy to think that ours has not traveled so far in that direction as some of the others. It is possible that the difference seen in this is chiefly owing to the shorter time they have been on their journey. Recent incidents which have come under my observation cause me to believe that there should be an early revival of former methods of instruction. In not a few cases children come to mature years without a definite knowledge of the message which called us out of the world, and so upon leaving the parental roof, turn their feet from the path in which they had learned to walk by parental example.

I do not mean to say that all the statements of earlier days should now be rehearsed; for having lived in the truth so long, and studied it from so many standpoints, we ought to be able to clothe the definite message attractively, and yet have it retain its familiar features. There is nothing so potent to arouse our people to action as the burning doctrines of the third angel’s message. The time is not far distant when all will need to know them more definitely, in order to be strengthened for the coming conflict. Let us hasten, then, to prepare our defense.