WHY THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES FELL by Edward Alexander Sutherland

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 19, 1900

WHY THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES FELL.

By Edward Alexander Sutherland

THE mighty angel of Revelation 14, who flew through heaven proclaiming the fall of Babylon, gave to the world one of the most solemn messages ever delivered to man. Protestantism was of divine birth. It was a union of heaven and earth, and in principle had a mission, as did “the man Christ Jesus.” When God proclaimed the corruption of Protestantism, in the second angel’s message, it was with sadness in the courts of heaven.

What caused that fall?

Protestantism was nurtured in infancy by a system of pure education. Luther and Melancthon, the foremost Reformers, did their great work in the religious world as educators. The Reformation created schools, and these schools trained teachers, earnest, consecrated teachers, who in forty years beheld the youth of Germany at their feet, imbibing the principles of freedom of conscience. Every European country that adopted Protestant ideas saw the same work of education begun.

The Puritans, finding their means of education in England too limited for the needs of Protestantism, sailed for America; and Plymouth was not out of its teens when the Massachusetts colony founded Harvard College, with the avowed object of educating ministers. Yale came into existence with the same lofty ambition. The common schools for the education of the children were church schools. The seventeenth century saw the schools of America well started, and the church showed signs of rapid growth. But pure Protestantism is too great a force to be allowed unquestioned freedom, and the enemy of truth rallied his forces for a vigorous attack. Through the schools, Protestantism bore sway, and gained its strength.

With the cunning of the serpent the plan of attack was laid for American Protestants. Passiveness is akin to death. A sluggish educational system will soon die of blood poison. The churches complained of the expense of maintaining schools. The wealthy employed private tutors for their children. The free schools became schools for the poor only. The standard for the teachers was lowered. Schoolhouses were a disgrace. It was a gradual decline from 1789 to 1839. W. T. Harris says that there was, “from 1789 to 1839,—a period of fifty years,—an apparent retrogression in education.”

Lack of time and space forbids a consideration of the causes of the decline; but from this time on there is a most striking parallel between the work in education and the work of the church. This is worthy of consideration.

The preaching of William Miller is familiar to every Seventh-day Adventist. It is known that, beginning in 1832 and continuing for ten or twelve years, his voice sounded throughout the land, proclaiming the second coming of Christ. The world heard his voice, and men awoke with a start. His message was accompanied with power, and he was followed by others who proclaimed the fall of Babylon. The proclamation of the fall of Babylon was not made until Babylon had heard the first message and rejected it.

Why was this first message rejected?

There is another movement parallel with the one just mentioned, which is less familiar to most persons than is the preaching of Miller. I refer to the educational message that was given to the world by Horace Mann. Horace Mann was raised up by God to do a work for the Lord, just as truly as William Miller was called to deliver his message.

The church had allowed the light of truth to grow dim. God awoke it by the labors of Miller. The church had also allowed the educational work to decline. God aroused it again by the words and works of Horace Mann. As Miller astonished his hearers by his boldness, so Mann aroused the bitterest opposition from conservative educators by his bold and daring enunciations. No one of less will power, or with a slighter hold upon the principles of truth, and through them upon the arm of God, could have met and conquered such difficulties.

Mr. Mann was a Christian, and advocated Christian education. Taken from the Senate in 1837, he was made secretary of the board of education for the State of Massachusetts. For twenty years all the power of his mighty intellect was set against errors in popular education, and in an attempt to introduce correct methods in teaching. “The schools will be found to be the way that God has chosen for the regeneration of the world,” he wrote.

In the Ninth Report of this board of education, Mr. Mann wrote: “Of all neglected or forgotten duties in all ages of the world, the spiritual culture of the children has been most neglected.” Concerning the work of the teacher, he wrote: “No low nature can perform the office of a high one in the schoolroom.” “Try to vitalize the conscience of a child, instead of tying him up to a set of rules.” “The true teacher will consider the train of feeling, not less than the train of thought, which is excited by the exercises of the schoolroom.”

Mr. Mann lived and worked at a period when slavery endangered the life of the nation. His voice and the power of the education he advocated were used against this evil.

Adventists know that one cause of the fall of the churches was due to the position they took on the slavery question. Had the church been true to its educational privileges, it would not have stumbled here; for Protestantism proclaims the equal rights of all men.

The character and teaching of this educator may be seen in these words: “A total abstainer from strong drink, tea and coffee, and a fierce hater of tobacco in any form; opposed to the recreation of dancing in the State normal schools; even uncertain about the reading of fairy tales and history by children, . . . he was always a dear lover of little children.”

Mr. Mann advocated the breaking away from the long courses in Greek and Latin, and insisted upon the practical in education. “His criticisms and decisions indeed often brought him into sharp antagonism with his own reliable supporters, and quite alienated the more radical fraternity, who discarded ‘policy’ in the attempt to enforce abstract truth at all hazards, though the heavens fall, wrecking the cause itself in the catastrophe.”

More, much more, might be said; for Horace Mann rescued the schools of America from destruction. The thing which concerns us is this: The churches handed the educational work over to the state. The churches had lost their means of growth; they fell. The first angel’s message was preached; they heard, but rejected the light. Why?—Because they had neglected educational light.

God raised up a man to rescue the schools. There was no church to which this work could be committed. Christian education must not die. In this extremity it was handed to the state until God could prepare a church to do that work. Where is that church? It was born in the religious movement of 1844. The education of the children has been waiting for that church to see its duty, and to take up the work where the popular churches fell. When will they do it? How long shall God have to wait for Seventh-day Adventists to see that their salvation lies in Christian education? You who are teachers, you who are parents, you who love the truth, and are ready to die for it, heed the words of Mann: “The schools will be found to be the way that God has chosen for the regeneration of the world.”

E. A. SUTHERLAND.