DRIFTING AWAY by Thoro Harris

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 25, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 21.

DRIFTING AWAY.

By Thoro Harris

A CORRESPONDENT in Chicago sends us, under the Act of May 5, the following from the Chicago World-Herald:—

Bible Critics Scored.

Latter-day critics of the books of the Bible were scored to-day by Prof. Howard Osgood, D. D., of the Rochester Theological Seminary, in a paper read before the American Bible League, by Dr. Gregory. Dr. Osgood declared the criticisms advanced nothing new, and proved that they were mere parrot-like repetitions of the teachings of Voltaire, Diderot, and Paine. He gave references from Paine’s “Age of Reason,” published in 1792, showing that many of the arguments were taken bodily from that work.

Rev. Dr. Robert Russell Booth, once moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, participated in the discussion.

“For nineteen centuries the Christian Church has seen the church persecuted, and the church militant,” declared the speaker. “Now we must fight treason in our midst. Men are using their positions on our pulpits and chairs of learning to disseminate treason. Church collections, salaries, endowments are being used to support those who talk Higher Criticism, and spread heresies.”

A minister in this city, as prominent as there is in the land, reads his Apostles’ Creed: “Jesus, so, they say, was born of the Virgin Mary; Jesus, so, they say, was raised after the third day.” No wonder men find excuse for easy virtue, when ministers ordained of God insert “they say” in the Apostles’ Creed.

“If this continues, the time must come when there will be but one refuge, and that will be the Roman Catholic Church, which, whatever it has added to the Word of God, has taken nothing from it.”

Our correspondent remarks: “Note (1) the perversion of the Apostles’ Creed by the insertion of ‘they say,’ making the facts concerning the life of Jesus mere myths; (2) the confidence expressed in the Roman Church ‘as our only refuge’—the one conservator of Biblical religion.”

“The Apostles’ Creed is an elegant and beautiful summary of Christian faith, and its truths have heretofore been regarded as facts, not fictitious speculations. The expression, ‘I believe in . . . the forgiveness of sins,’ was that which brought Luther out of the slough of despondency, and prepared the way for the glorious Reformation. But the Apostles’ Creed is too scriptural for modern criticism.”

“A piece of literature is not necessarily to be condemned because it originated just a little later than the apostles’ day. The ‘Te Deum’ is a grand hymn, notwithstanding the use made of it in connection with St. Bartholomew’s massacre; and the hymns written by St. Bernard can not be surpassed for expressing love to Jesus.”

“Surely the drift of Protestant sentiment is away from the Word of God.”

“Yours sincerely,

“THORO HARRIS.”