A GREAT NEED | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 28, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 50.

A GREAT NEED.

THE great need of the church to-day is a cordial and demonstrative faith. If our hearts were as full of the promises as our heads are—if we believed in them as the bride believes in the husband for whose sake she leaves all else that is familiar and dear and goes to a new home, her only knowledge of which is from his word, the world would feel the power of the church as it did in apostolic times. Men are waiting all around us for a demonstration of the life of our religion. They admire it as a system. They see, too, that it has some influence for good upon individuals and society. But they do not see in those who profess it evidence of the constraining love of Christ. They hear us sing,—

"Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow thee;"

But when they look for the crosses on our shoulders, lo, they are not there! Instead of staggering under them as pilgrims, we are riding in palace cars. We are being "carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease." And instead of leaving all to follow Christ, we send a few of our enthusiastic brethren and sisters to the famishing heathen, and give a dollar a year to foreign missions.—Interior.