Increase of Skepticism by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 17, 1874

Increase of Skepticism.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

(Concluded from No. 13, page 108.)

FRANCE.

Rev. A. Doopooté of Paris spoke for France. He said:—

“The Protestant population of France is still but a feeble minority, which holds its own, but does not sensibly increase.”

Not very encouraging that; but worse still, Catholicism is growing stronger every day. Thus he says:—

“At this very moment Protestantism is greatly cramped in its movements. The liberty of propagandism has almost always been greatly restricted in France—narrowly limited by chilling and exclusive regulations. In our unfortunate country it is not as in free America; it is difficult to stir without authorized permission. Without Government authority a lecture cannot be given, a place of worship opened, a meeting held, or tracts distributed. Added to this, the Catholic priesthood is very powerful—more so, alas, at the present time than ever—exercising, particularly in small towns and country places, considerable influence upon those in authority.”

Free-thinkers and Rationalists are also troubling France. Of them he says:—

“Most young Frenchmen are brought up in a holy horror of Protestantism; and traces of this early impression are even found clinging to the minds of men of independent thought—nay, of those whose boast it is that they are Free-thinkers.

“The second great task that must be achieved if Protestantism is to take a proper footing in France, is the settling of the great internal struggle between faith and rationalism that has disturbed the national church for about half a century.”

A dismal prospect here. Look now at

SCANDINAVIA.

Dr. Kalkar, of Copenhagen, spoke for this country. He says:—

“Methodism, despite of its elegant church in Copenhagen, built with American money, has no adherents. The Baptists have lost their popularity since the law enforcing baptism has been abolished, and comprise a few members, who convene in a little church in the suburbs.

“The Irvingites, supported by England, have a little congregation on the same suburb which meets in a small church. They make no ostentatious display. Besides those sects enumerated, a few more lead a precarious existence and disappear by degrees.”

Of modern skepticism he says:—

“Unbelief has spread among the people, especially among the educated classes, and is fed in several papers by translations from German and French writings having this tendency.”

Here, then, as in other countries, the educated classes are being swallowed up by unbelief, while evangelical religion is dying out.

ENGLAND.

Of all the countries of the Old World, this has been regarded as the bulwark of Protestantism. But the foundations are giving way. President Noah Porter of Yale College, in a paper read before the Alliance, said:—

“One can scarcely believe what he knows when he reflects on the rapid growth and the strong-rooted hold of this atheistic school of letters on English soil, and its temporary triumph in what has claimed to be the most Christian of its universities. That it exists and presents a most formidable front to the hereditary faith of the English people cannot be denied.”

EUROPE IN GENERAL.

The distinguished and devoted Merle D’Aubigné, author of the “History of the Reformation,” prepared a paper just before his death for the Alliance, which was read there. His words are most solemn, and the statements which he makes are as alarming as they are true:—

“CRITICAL NATURE OF THE TIMES.”

“If the meeting for which you are assembled is an important one, the period at which it is held is equally so, not only on account of the great things which God is accomplishing in the world, but also by reason of the great evil which the spirit of darkness is spreading throughout Christendom. The despotic and arrogant pretensions of Rome have reached in our days their highest pitch, and we are consequently more than ever called upon to contend against that power which dares to usurp the divine attributes. But that is not all. While superstition has increased, unbelief has done so still more. Until now, the eighteenth century—the age of Voltaire—was regarded as the epoch of most decided infidelity, but how far does the present time surpass it in this respect! Voltaire himself protested against the philosophy which he called atheistic and said: ‘God is necessarily the Great, the Only, the Eternal Artificer of all nature’ (Dialogues XXV). But the pretended philosophers of our day leave such ideas far behind, and regard them as antiquated superstitions. Materialism and atheism have, in many minds, taken the place of the true God. Science, which was Christian in the finest intellects of former days, in those to whom we owe the greatest discoveries, has become atheistic among men who now talk the loudest. They imagine that, by means of general laws which govern the physical world, they can do without Him from whom those laws proceed. Some remains of animals found in ancient strata of our globe make them reject the creation of which the Bible inaugurates the account in these solemn words: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’”

“Eminent literary men continually put forward in their writings what is called Positivism, rejecting everything that goes beyond the limit of the senses, and disdaining all that is supernatural. These evils, which had formerly only reached the upper ranks of society, have now spread to the working classes, and some among them may be heard to say, ‘When man is dead, all is dead.’ But there is a still sadder feature of our times. Unbelief has reached even the ministry of the word. Pastors belonging to Protestant churches in France, Switzerland, Germany, and other continental countries, not only reject the fundamental doctrines of the faith, but also deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and see in him nothing more than a man who, according to many among them, was even subject to errors and faults. A synod of the Reformed Church in Holland has lately decreed that when a minister baptizes, he need not do it in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. A journal, when relating this fact, adds, ‘Will they then baptize in the God above?’ At an important assembly held lately in German Switzerland, at which were present many men of position, both in the church and State, the basis of the new religion was laid down. ‘No doctrines,’ was the watchword on that occasion. ‘No new doctrines, whatever they may be, in place of the old; liberty alone; which means liberty to overthrow everything.’ And too truly some of those ministers believe neither in a personal God nor in the immortality of the soul. For a portion of the European population there is no other gospel than that of Spinoza and often much less even than that.”

“The spirit of darkness spreading throughout Christendom,” superstition and unbelief increasing, the present age far surpassing that of Voltaire in infidelity, atheism taking the place of God, science becoming atheistic, eminent literary men teaching Positivism, the masses becoming pervaded by these ideas, and even Protestant ministers denying the fundamental facts of the gospel,—these are the prominent features of the times. Are these the harbingers of the promised millennium?

Prof. John Cairns, D. D., of Berwick, Eng., draws the following alarming but truthful picture of this generation:—

The advance, so rapid and wonderful, of science and art and the progress of education and diffusion of literature, the self-assertion by long oppressed nationalities of their rights and liberties, the approximation to a commercial and political unity of the human race, all tend to foster the idea of man’s inherent capacity and to set afloat the wild and chimerical schemes and hopes of moral regeneration, irrespective of Christianity. The dream of independent morality finds countenance. Theories of spiritual development more exaggerated and fictitious by far than these of physical development, are accepted. The march of intelligence or the revolutionary impulse is to make all things new. Meanwhile, the sad and humbling aspects of the nineteenth century—its hideous vices and crimes, its luxury, selfishness, and greed, set over against pauperism, debasement, and discontent, its wars and international feuds with ever-increasing conscriptions and standing armies—are overlooked.

Hon. Geo. H. Stuart, of Philadelphia, thus spoke before the Alliance:—

“The field is the world. It has in it 1,300,000,000 immortal souls, destined to meet us at the judgment bar of God. Of these 1,300,000,000, there are 800,000,000 bowing down to stocks and stones, the workmanship of their own hands. Besides these 800,000,000 heathens, there are 110,000,000 of Mohammedans, 240,000,000 of other false systems of religion, leaving only 100,000,000 of nominal Protestants. It is not for us to say how many of these 100,000,000 are true disciples of our risen and exalted Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

This view of the present condition of the world, thus presented by so many different and eminent religious men from all parts, is alarming indeed. And every year it is growing worse. Adventists are ridiculed as fanatics for believing that the Lord is soon coming to destroy the world for its wickedness and to save his people. But we ask the candid reader whether the man who, in the face of all these facts, believes in the speedy conversion of the whole world and the near approach of the millennium, may not more justly be regarded as a fanatic? While a few thousand ignorant pagans in heathen lands are receiving the gospel, millions in Christian lands are turning away from it and embracing socialism, infidelity, and atheism; and among those we find the higher, the educated, and the scientific classes taking the lead. Of the last days, Jesus said, ‘Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?’ Luke 18:8. This plainly implies that there will be general unbelief upon the earth when he comes. Such a condition of things is now rapidly coming to pass. The world is about ripe for destruction. Its cup of iniquity is about full.

Reader, can you not discern the signs of the times? The very fact that about ten millions have within the last twenty-five years given up their faith in the word of God for the abominations of spiritualism speaks volumes as to the unbelief of this age. God’s truth alone is able to keep us from falling under the power of the spirit of darkness. Reader, you need the help of God to keep you in the trying time that is coming. This you will have if you walk in the light which God is now giving his people.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Watsonville, Cal., Feb. 10, 1874.