Respectable Sins | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 3, 1885

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 34

Respectable Sins.

BEWARE of respectable sins! Not that any sin, however garishly arrayed or socially dignified, is in itself respectable; but that some sins are so countenanced by certain classes that they are held to be respectable. Mrs. Browning spoke truly when, with epigrammatic force, she said: “The devil is most devilish when respectable,” because he is then most dangerous. His seeming respectability throws unwary souls off their guard and beguiles them by begetting the thought that their objection to certain profitable or delightful courses of conduct is based, not on reason or on Scripture rationally interpreted, but on a squeamish or morbid conscientiousness. Hence, for example, when young men see social honors paid to rich financiers whose overflowing coffers were filled by means of transactions which involved lying, deception, and speculative trickery, they are disposed to think such dishonest practices are not so bad as they have been taught to believe. So when members of churches drink wine, play cards, visit skating rinks, or indulge in any other ungodly practices, they throw the cloak of their respectability over deeds which are in themselves injurious both to the moral and spiritual life. Thus they enable the devil to do his most devilish work of luring young and feeble souls into the pit of destruction. How needful, then, is the caution—Beware of respectable sins! for beneath the masks they wear, is the grinning head of death, yea, of that “second death,” from which no resurrection unto life is possible. Beware, therefore, of respectable sins!—Zion’s Herald.