One Idol Left | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 15.

One Idol Left.

A POPULAR and successful revivalist is reported to have declared in substance on an occasion having for its object the promotion of a deeper, truer consecration on the part of believers, that he had known of persons who had made high professions of sanctity, who waxed very happy, and shouted very lustily in religious meetings, who yet, as soon as any lesson of real self-denial was clearly and pointedly brought home to them, were found very suddenly and completely to subside. “Hosannas languished on their tongues, and their devotion died.” Name, for example, the matter of tobacco, and insist upon the inconsistency of the use of this vile weed with the highest style of piety, and in case any of these happy brethren chance to be addicted to the filthy practice named, you will find that you have suddenly brought an awful coldness upon them. They will be either mute, or angry, or both. Their fervor, somehow, alas! has instantly all eked out at the ends of their fingers, and their harps are hung on the willows. That appetite was not killed by the shock which annihilated innate depravity. Away with all such superficial Christianity. It is a delusion—this perfection which thus is on the lips only, and has no consistent, victorious life behind it. In this connection we are reminded of an old Methodist divine to whom a certain brother came and dolefully confessed that he had been enabled to put everything on God’s altar but one.

“What was that?” asked the old divine. After some persuasion, the brother at length reluctantly admitted that his cherished idol was his pipe.

“You need have no concern about that,” said the speaker. “God don’t want your good-for-nothing old filthy pipe. Throw it away, brother, and your vile tobacco with it, and come to Christ at once, and with all your heart.”—Christian at Work.