Blind Leaders of the Blind.
By Editor
IN the Pacific (Congregationalist), of January 21, we find the following:— "DEAR PACIFIC: How you have delighted my heart and eased my conscience! I have several habits that have not seemed in harmony with religious things, and I have longed for some line of argument that would let me keep on without scruples. You have furnished it. A few weeks ago you published, without your dissent, Spurgeon's defense of his habit of smoking tobacco. He looked over the ten commandments, and found no one that said, 'Thou shalt not smoke.' Ten commandments are as many as he can keep, and he does not care to make eleven, so he smokes. This is just the thing. Ten commandments are enough for me, also. I look in vain for any that says, 'Thou shalt not bet at a horse-race, neither shalt thou play draw poker;' therefore, I keep on as I have been doing. Now, may I not join the church which the Pacific represents? LIBERTAS." Can it be that the Pacific endorses this position? It certainly appears so, as it printed Spurgeon's sermon without dissent, and now prints this, with not a word of comment. When such things are set forth from what is held as one of the most influential pulpits in the world, and are given further currency by pretendedly religious journals, it certainly is high time that the obligations of the ten commandments should be set forth as they are. When the spiritual discernment of religious teachers has become so dulled that they can see no more than that, in the holy, spiritual law of God, it surely is time to call attention to the Bible. We add two texts which we think decidedly applicable: "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God." Heb. 5:12. "It is time for thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void thy law." Ps. 119:126.