p. 7 | TENDING DOWNWARD by S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 29, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 44.

TENDING DOWNWARD.

By S.

A WRITER in Watchword and Truth, who styles himself, “a harassed pastor,” lays bare a condition which he finds prevalent in the professed church that is surely in harmony with the spirit of the times. The world is racing away from God; the church is dancing in the same direction. This “harassed pastor” declares that in his parish nearly all patronize the dance, even the officers of his church. One of the latter, an elder, who had been taken to task for attending a dance with his family when revival meetings were in progress in his church, “boldly declared that if he had to choose between the church and dancing, he would choose the dancing.” And the pastor goes on: “Somehow those revival meetings did not seem to revive anybody.” With that kind of example from the church elders, and that spirit in the elders and the lay members, it is difficult to see how it could. That was not the kind of revival they were looking for; it was certainly not the kind of revival they were working for; and if they were praying at all, it certainly could not have been for that kind of work.

The condition as seen by that pastor, is not confined to the young; but “the way parents—church members, too—flock with their children to the dancing-school instead of to the Sunday-school, is appalling;” and that condition, as we know it, is not confined to the church of that “harassed pastor,” but is seen in the great fashionable churches of the land. The saddest part of it is that it is seen in many churches whose pastors are not at all harassed by it. Some have even gone so far as to organize dancing classes in their church, and give the same their patronage and encouragement, for the purpose of making the church popular with the young people—a puerile and wicked excuse, when dancing masters themselves, as well as men and women who have forsaken the passion-maddening whirl of sin, have denounced the practise for the pit of iniquity, which it is. When the giddy whirl is on, reason and modesty take wings, houses of shame gloat over their prospects, and the devils laugh. If the statement of the matron of a “rescue home” be true, that “seven-tenths of the girls received here have fallen through dancing and its influence,” such churches and such church leaders have a fearful account to settle at the bar of God. If the statement of the chief of police of New York be true, that “three-fourths of the abandoned girls of that metropolis were ruined by dancing,” then the parents who are encouraging, by permission and example, their children to patronize the dance, are taking upon their own heads a fearful responsibility. It is nothing less than the blood of their children who perish, soul and body, in the toils of that insatiate monster.

These are conditions which exist in numerous portions of that body which professes to be the church of Jesus Christ to-day; and there is no strong, vigorous protest against it. The pastor above quoted puts it: “Brains appear to be running out of heads, and grace out of hearts, down into heels.” Certainly the movement is downward. The whole tendency of the practice is downward, and the tendency in the church and the individual that fosters it is bound to be downward also. As the spirit of inspiration puts it: “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” That is, the love of the many for the things of God; and that is just what is happening in these iniquity-breeding centers, that once were and should be now centers of spiritual life and light. But that condition has been faithfully predicted by the infallible Word. We have been told that it would come; and we have also been told what we should expect when that condition of things was dominant in the world. Christ Himself, when asked for signs of His coming and of the end of the world, referred to just such conditions as these as signs of that event. His own declaration is that last quoted above; and He goes on to say in the very next verse: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” Matt. 24:13.

Paul, in writing of the times and conditions just prior to Christ’s return, says, “In the last days perilous times shall come.” We are in those perilous times now, and they are becoming more perilous as the church allows herself to be enamored of the amusements and follies of the world. The apostle outlines the various forms of ungodliness that would be manifest in these times, and then says, “Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse.” (See 2 Tim. 3:1–13.) In no field does the evil-minded man and the seducer find so fruitful a harvest as in the parent-patronized and church-fostered dance.

These conditions are signs of the end. Would that those who are encouraging them could see the end to which they lead; the event which they portend; and the fearful responsibility that rests upon them in the matter. The light has been given; there is no need for us to remain in darkness as to the meaning of the conditions. Their course is downward; ours must be upward. The ruin of that course is bound to come; but it is not necessary that a single soul should be overwhelmed in it. S.