CONDITION OF CHURCH AS STATED BY A PASTOR.
A Congregational pastor of Berkeley, Cal., G. B. Hatch, declares that the two chief infidelities of the church at the present time are evolution, about which the great majority know little or nothing, and a “mid-summer madness” of sociology, socialism, and kindred things, in which a lesser branch of Christian work is made the main thing, a “secondary branch of the tree of life” is “hewed into a god.” Of evolution Pastor Hatch says:— The church has been surrendering all along the line to evolution. Now, evolution is a hypothesis of science, and science has a perfect right to that hypothesis, to work with it, if possible. But the church has no business with that hypothesis either to deny it or to accept it, in so far as it is confined to the realm of science. As a scientific hypothesis the church knows very little about it, and not one man in ten could move ten feet ahead in an attempt to state it without falling down. As a scientific hypothesis the church has no more concern with evolution, and scarcely more acquaintance with it, than with the formula for determining the foundation of a ship.9But the hypothesis of evolution has been seized upon by those Athenians who are always open for something new, and has been made into a master key to unlock the mysteries of mind and spirit, as well as those of matter. The church has tumbled over its feet in its rapid haste to get to those Athenians, and to say, “O, I believe you. I am no old fogy. ‘I am up-to-date. Nothing slow or sleepy about ‘me.’” But in so doing the church has simply sold itself for a mess of pottage.—S. F. Call, October 3, 1901. And so he tells us that there are “empty pews, ‘low treasuries, scant public respect, an entire ‘ignoring of the church by multitudes and industrious ‘rotten-egging of it by other multitudes, very few ‘conversions, constant discussion with never a de- cision of the query, Why do not men, and espe- cially workmen, attend and support the church?” And it all demonstrates the truth of the apostle’s words in 2 Tim. 3:1-5. Surely we are in the last days, and perilous times are around us. Yet there is hope, and that lies in receiving with all the heart God’s message for to-day. Read it in Rev. 14:6-14.