“There Are Other Things.”
By W. N. Glenn
I HAVE met many evasive replies when endeavoring to urge duties inseparably connected with present truth, but none so completely discouraging as this: “Well, I believe there are other things to be done as well as that.” This kind of reply shows at once that the one making it is determined not to yield to a known duty. And it carries with it the unwarranted insinuation that I am making a hobby of the matter urged, to the utter disregard of other equally plain and important duties. I spoke to one about attending meetings. After several quibbles, the last plea was resorted to: “Well, I don’t believe it’s all in going to meeting; I know people who go to about all the meetings, yet they do many inconsistent things. I believe there are other things to be done besides going to meeting.” Here was the intimation that I considered going to meeting the whole duty of the Christian; yet the individual knew better—the reply was a mere subterfuge. The matter of baptism and church membership was urged upon one who had known for a long time that such a course was duty, and had often acknowledged it. But procrastination had at last brought him to the point where he could say: “Yes it is all very well if one can live it out; but I don’t believe it’s all in being a church member. There are other duties besides being baptized and joining the church. I don’t believe in hypocrisy; when I become a church member I mean to be one in earnest.” Now the innuendo attached to this evasion is plain, and he knew it to be unjust. The case is a discouraging one. I conversed with a near friend upon the subject of the fourth commandment. She took refuge in the “last ditch” and met me with this weapon: “I don’t believe in talking all the time about the Sabbath; I believe the other commandments are just as important as the fourth. There are other things to be done besides keeping the Sabbath; if I do what is right I won’t be condemned for trying to make an honest living.” All this, and more of a like strain, was put forth as an argument against the duty of keeping the Sabbath; yet there is not a word or expression that I do not myself indorse, although there is in it the silently implied charge that my position is altogether antagonistic to this wholesome doctrine. I may speak of the soon coming of the Lord and the preparation for it, and one who is not with us in faith yet, calls me “brother,” will say: “We do not know when the Lord will come; ‘of that day and hour knoweth no man.’ I don’t believe in setting times for the Lord to come. We may die any day, and I think if we are prepared to die we will be all right when the Lord comes. There are other things more important than talking about the Lord’s coming.” And so we may go on from one Bible topic to another, and we will find those professing to be earnest and sincere who will evade almost every obligation on the plea that there are other duties of equal importance. I always feel disheartened over one who has wandered into this dangerous snare. It is a pit that is generally entered with open eyes, and from which it is hard to induce one to even try to escape; so smoothly delusive is the entrance that the victim walks boldly in, feeling that he is treading the safest possible path. He cannot be convinced of error; simply because he will not. I repeat it, such cases are always disheartening to me.