BOGUS PIETY by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 25, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 33.

BOGUS PIETY.

By Editor

A RECENT dispatch giving an account of a series of post-office robberies in a town in this State, by a man named Weston, whose evil deeds had just come to light, closed with these words: "Weston was a church member, and very pious." Now this is not true, and is never true in any similar case. The man was indeed a church member, but he was not pious. He may have had the appearance of piety, but he had not the real article. Pious men do not do such things. Moreover, the man who wrote that dispatch knew that the post-office thief was not pious, and every worldling knows that bank-defaulters, embezzlers, etc., are not pious men. They know that piety is not that kind of stuff, that Christianity calls for something better, and that Christians should act differently. And it is because they know this, that they never fail to mention that an erring man was a professed Christian. Such mention is always an unconscious and unintended tribute to the exalted character of true Christianity, because it shows that even the haters of Christianity know that evil deeds are inconsistent with it.

But someone may ask how we explain the sudden falls from piety and integrity that we so often see or hear about. We answer that such sudden falls are not so common as is supposed. But when they do occur, we can explain them just as we would explain the sudden fall of a building. If a building falls suddenly and without warning, and apparently without sufficient cause, we say at once that there was a defect in its construction; it never was sound. It stood for a time, and was apparently sound, but continued pressure made itself felt in the place that was weak. So a man who "suddenly falls" from piety, simply gives way under strong pressure upon some weak point. And as no building is any stronger than its weakest support, so no Christian character, however sound it may appear, is any stronger than the spot that has never been built up. So in reality even this was not a sudden fall from true piety, but from the semblance thereof.

In general, therefore, it may be set down as a fact that men do not fall suddenly into great sins. Solomon says that "the beginning of strife is as when one leteth out water;" the tiny stream soon makes for itself a larger opening, which gradually increases until a mighty torrent rushes through. So a little sin, covered up, a little defect cherished, brings condemnation to the individual at first, but the voice of conscience being repressed, he becomes hardened, possibly at last really unconscious of the fact that he is living a lie, and then detection is the only thing necessary to make the world say in derision, there is a specimen of a pious man, and others mourn over the "sudden fall" of one who was highly esteemed. They simply confound the detection with the fall, whereas the fall may have taken place years before. Then the cause of Christ has to suffer reproach, since people forget that it is really to the credit of Christianity that dishonest men put it on as a cloak for their ungodly deeds. They know that people do not look there for such things, and so they expect to escape without detection.