The Andover Review’s Euphemism
By Editor
"The precious extract given above is from an editorial page of the Andover Review. 'Much reason to believe'! . . . 'this present life the most favorable opportunity' for securing one's salvation! Out upon such a bit of Satanic euphemism! What a sharp and awfully suggestive contrast do the words of the apostle present: 'Now is the accepted time'—'to-day if ye will hear his voice.' But instead we have a professedly Christian Review issued by professedly Christian teachers putting forth the milk-and-water declaration, 'There is much reason to believe that this present life is the most favorable opportunity for moral renewal in Christ.' Well, we should say it was; and our advice to the Andover Review is to issue no more promises to pay, maturing in eternity, till it knows that it can make them good. It is a profoundly awful, a tragically perilous undertaking, this euphemistic game of playing with the immortal interests of the soul. Andover was not established for that sort of work. Yet just that it is now doing. It is certainly fortunate for the cause of vital religion that a living gospel and the trumpet call to repentance, such as John declared in the wilderness and Jesus sounded forth beside still Galilee, are preached in the Christian pulpits of the land in a tone very different from the melodious piping, the emasculated euphemism, of the Andover Review."