p. 164 | LIKE THE WORLD

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 21, 1878

LIKE THE WORLD.

This is the death-knell to all spiritual life and prosperity. Any class of professing Christians of whom it can truthfully be said that they are like the world, have sealed their doom unless by speedy reformation they shall recover themselves from this snare of the enemy.

A sister writes from Indiana: “How does it come that S. D. Adventists dress so much like the world? Three years ago, when our camp-meeting was held at Bunker Hill, it was very easy to tell who were Adventists and who were not. But I am sorry to say that at our last camp-meeting the present season, one could not tell an Adventist from a person of the world, unless by personal acquaintance. If we are the peculiar people that are to be brought out in the last days, must we not dress more plainly, putting into the cause the extra time and money which fashionable dressing would involve?”

This sister, no doubt, has too much ground for her anxious inquiry. But there is one fact to be borne in mind, and that is, that our camp-meetings are every year calling out a larger number of those not of our faith, and whose dress would not accord with the profession we make. Some of these may perhaps, unless care is taken, be supposed for some reason to be S. D. Adventists, and thus the conclusion may be drawn that S. D. Adventists are becoming like the world.

This mistake has sometimes been made in regard to the church in Battle Creek. Quite a proportion of our congregation every Sabbath is made up of people of the world or of other denominations; and in the matter of adornment and costly array, the dress of some of these would be such as any one acquainted with the Bible standard must at once condemn. And as these have been taken for members of the church, the report has gone out in some instances that the church in Battle Creek was fearfully backslidden in the matter of dress, whereas the persons referred to were not members of the church at all.

We would not be understood by this as saying that there is no departure among us from the teaching of the Bible, or even from our former simplicity, in this respect. It is plain to be seen that there is, and that the evil is fast growing upon us. It calls for serious consideration and alarm. What can be done? This, at least, can be done. Every one who sees the evil can keep himself or herself from it. It must be, after all, an individual work. We judge from our sister’s letter quoted above that there was at least one on the Indiana camp-ground who could be distinguished from the world. Let her maintain her integrity. Let all others who, like her, see the evil, do likewise. Thus there will be an influence, which, although it will not help the personal responsibility of those who are carried away by the foolish fashions of the day, will nevertheless be a testimony in the church in behalf of simplicity and right.