THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD.
By Editor
SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS are often accused of preaching about the fallen condition of the churches; but they say no more than what is said by good men in the different churches, men who have the means of knowing. As an instance of this, take the following from the Standard, of January 3, a Baptist paper published in Chicago:— Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, as he looks at the church exclaims: "Our church life is undermined by worldliness. A worldly church prevents the conversion of sinners. More and more the eyes of men become blinded and sealed to the value of divine things. We thunder in the ears of men the terrible truths of God, but they are deaf and dead, and the very church itself so grieves and quenches the Spirit by fellowship with evil that there is no power in the Lord's people to convert souls. Four-fifths of the nominal membership of our churches add nothing to their real power. They are either a dead weight or a positive hindrance to the advance of the gospel; they help to fill up the gulf between the truly regenerate and the open enemies of Christ." Is this a true picture of the church as we view it as a whole? Is Dr. Pierson to be regarded as a pessimist? or does his consecrated life lead him to read aright "the signs of the times"? What calls for the Friday evening "lectures" in so many churches instead of the old-fashioned, God-honored prayer-meeting? Is it not an absence of that deep spiritual life which presses for utterance when God's children assemble at the hour of prayer? In times of awakening how readily the people occupy the time! A long, formal address by the pastor is uncalled for and undesired. This is but a single illustration taken from scores with which every pastor is more or less familiar.