p. 75 | TOO TRUE | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 8, 1877

TOO TRUE.

Rev. W. H. H. Murray is not of those who say “Peace! Peace! when there is no peace!” He, in his Golden Rule, admonishes the churches of danger and duty. “Boston and New England,” he cries out, “are already, in the majority of the population, non-church-going. The church, and hence the word of God, is fast ceasing to be a power over the popular thought and conscience. The average man and woman care little for either. They neither attend the services of the one nor read the other, as a rule. In short, it amounts to just this: young New England is growing up Bible-less. That worst phase of skepticism is being reached—universal and good-natured carelessness touching religious claims and teachings. The skepticism, mark you, is home bred. The ‘scientists’ have nothing to do with it. Its parents are here; its home is here; here it is being nursed. Its mother is bigotry, and stiffness, and coldness, in the administration of our churches. Its father is dry and stupid preaching. The church has, as it were, turned against herself, and, by her own errors and weaknesses, lost her hold on the popular imagination.”

The one hopeful sign is that the church is getting scared. “Hence the feverish competition to secure the presence of noted evangelists. Hence the wild efforts to ‘organize’ local revivals. Hence the Y. M. C. Associations, which are only on the one hand organized protests against the apathy of the churches, and, on the other, a make-shift to keep the young men in religious connection, at least outside, if not inside of the churches.” But those don’t go far enough. The church must improve itself within. “It is for pulpit and pew to come back to the simple gospel of Jesus. Preach theology less, and literature less, and science less, and plain, simple, practical Christianity more. Let the deacons and prominent men in the church quarrel less, and caucus less, and fight less, and live humble, peaceful and godly lives. Let the pews, in the persons of their occupants, advertise less jewelry, fewer camel’s-hair shawls, opera hats, ‘sweet walking habits,’ and dress more simply, as becometh those who come to worship Him ‘who looketh not at the outward appearance, but who looketh at the heart.’”—Exch.