LUCRE | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 9, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 35.

LUCRE.

MONEY is the potent thing just now in the nominal church. Money buys its way into the communion of the sects; money rules the offices there; money defies discipline, and mocks at church penalties. One need not go out of the town where he lives, to verify this, or to find illustrations of its truth. The American Review tells of a fine church edifice built in a certain city, in which a fine church congregation was gathered. The minister found that the leading man that had a mortgage on the church was an adulterer. The preacher immediately suspended the villain and the man wrote: "If I am not restored in three days I will foreclose the mortgage, and close the church." He was taken back, adultery and all. This is a typical case, and if so, what an awful condition the churches of the land must be in. Who knows of a rich man ever being turned out of the church? Truly it needs a Christ with small cords to drive out the robbers, and to cleanse the house of God that it may be a house of prayer.—Selected.