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STRAINING AT A GNAT

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 3, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 52, No. 15.

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STRAINING AT A GNAT.

By J. O. Corliss

Our Saviour spoke of a class of people in his day who strained at gnats and swallowed camels. We understand this language to be a strong figure, illustrating the strange inconsistencies of the popular teachers of that age, who made a great ado about the sentiments he taught, and held up their hands in holy horror because the people listened to his plain teachings; yet who had so little sense of the requirements of God that they thought nothing of pandering to the vitiated tastes of popular feeling.
The same spirit is shown to a great extent in this generation. A case of this kind lately came to our notice, confirming us in our belief that the truth has in every generation had the same difficulties to contend with, that the Saviour of mankind found and exposed when he was on the earth. While holding tent-meetings at a certain place, a minister attended once or twice, and a great portion of his flock took the same liberty. The result was that some of them became deeply interested in the truth, and of course they became constant attendants. The minister feeling sorry for the part he had acted in the matter, and wishing to wash his hands from the affair, we understand, made a public confession to his brethren in a prayer-meeting, humbly begging their forgiveness, and asking their prayers in his behalf for attending the tent-meeting.
To attend an Adventist meeting, where the Bible is explained, was considered such a grave matter that a confession was deemed necessary to palliate the offense. But to sanction church fairs of every description, where hilarity and glee are the order of the day, or to attend festivals for the benefit of the church, where a fee is exacted at the door from the fun-loving community, is thought to be in exact keeping with the religion of Jesus Christ.
Some one may say, that perhaps the reason why the latter class of entertainments are taken with so little straining is because they relish better. That may be true; and yet we fail to see the consistency of straining so at the plain truths of God's word, while entering into all the popular amusements of the day, and at the same time claiming to be guided by the Spirit of the living God, which forbids such things; and we can only account for it by regarding it as a remarkable counterpart of the case referred to by the Saviour in Matt. 23: 24-30.
J. O. Corliss.