p. 248 | Modern Unbelief

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 15, 1878

Modern Unbelief.

THE Pacific Methodist invites attention to the following statements from a sermon recently delivered by H. W. Beecher: "There are hundreds and thousands of men in our churches who, from one cause or another, listen to sound orthodox preaching for a score of years, and do not believe a word of it. They do not say anything about their unbelief; it is a good thing they think to have their children brought up under church rules and regulations; they have an impression there is morality in the pulpit, but, as to any philosophy of religion that they hear preached, it goes in at one ear and out at the other. . . . Whatever the cause may be, our churches are filled with men who are very much at sea in regard to their religious belief. . . . The pulpit is not any longer the chief instructor. A hundred years ago men read but few books, for the most part, and it was not reputable to read infidel books. Theological notions were derived from the pulpit largely, but now the pulpit is only one tribunal among a score, and tis not the most influential one at that. It is complained everywhere that men are abandoning the church, and that the churches are, in a majority of instances, thinly attended."