p. 800 | Editorial Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 50.

Editorial Notes

By Editor

It will be noticed that there are two Sunday school and two Sabbath school lessons in this week's issue. We print the double lessons as there will be no paper next week.

THERE may possibly be held in Oakland some time in the latter part of this month an institute on religious liberty for the benefit of California workers. This is not positive, but hopefully probable. It is not yet decided.

THE Rev. Dharmapala, Buddhist priest from Hindustan, spoke in this city the evening of October 2, on the subject of "Man and His Mission." The address showed neither great intellectual ability nor profound learning; yet his audience were very enthusiastic at times in their applause. Of his teaching we shall have more to say hereafter.

WE publish in our next issue important and instructive articles on "The Christian Ideal of Civil Government," by A. F. Ballenger, secretary of the Religious Liberty Association. Following that it will be shown, by articles from Prof. P. T. Magan, just how this ideal has been degraded, and the principles of liberty abjured by those who should have contended most stoutly for them. These articles, and those published in the past on the Mystery of Iniquity, including the one in this present number, are of vital importance.

THE ritualistic wing of the Protestant Episcopal Church is not merely drifting Romeward, she has all sail hoisted, and is making her way back to port as rapidly as possible. A Catholic authority says that she has more churches in England dedicated to the Virgin Mary than to Christ, and in New York City one recently fitted up is the "Church of St. Mary the Virgin," in Forty-fifth Street. It has recently imported fourteen works of art, illustrating the "Stations of the Cross," or fourteen striking incidents in the last hours of Christ's earth life. The figures are about three-fourths life size and in full relief, made of a stone composition in cream tinting and gold. "Father" Brown, the rector, said:—

Our church is merely going back to the forms of devotion used in the early days of its inception in England. We are experiencing a reaction from what we call the "dead days"—the days of the Georges in England, when the heretics spoke with a loud voice in France, England, and here. It was then the Episcopal Church was shorn of much of the ritualistic devotion in its former exercises.

And with this "going back," manifest in other so-called Protestant churches also, there is coming in spiritual death, dead forms, and persecution for conscience' sake. Christ's church never goes back, but forward.

THE Christian Advocate of October 5 in a double-leaded editorial, entitled the "Need of the Times," says, among other things:—

A wave of demoralization sweeps over the nation. Sunday traveling was never so common. Devotion to amusements was never so intense. Absorption of the people in general questions, never more complete. Political activity, never greater in a nonpresidential election. Gambling pervades the land. Pool selling is common throughout the country. Horse racing gains in popularity and strength; its promoters are more arrogant, and traps for the young in every direction are set with unusual skill and openness. In various States, Legislatures are corrupt, pandering to the liquor and other base interests. The fibers that bind the church together are relaxed, and its energies, such as are available, absorbed in "enterprises" and "causes," while growth in grace and the conversion of souls receive only the remnants of attention. The general report is that prayer meetings are dull and slimly attended, and signs of spirituality few and occasional.

And all this is in harmony with the prophetic word. But, sad to say, the church is turning not to God for power to win souls from these snares and the inevitable ruin which follows, but is seeking to the world. The above is what the editor says. In the same paper H. K. Carroll, LL.D., says of the Christianity of the day:—

I believe that the world has never seen a better type of Christianity. It is intensely practical, and yet spiritual; cultivated, but consecrated; wealthy, but aggressive; broader in its aims, but increasingly zealous in its proclamation of the truth. I do not think it is losing its hold upon the people; I think it is getting its grip upon the whole world.

By the standard of Christ and his gospel let the reader judge. Dr. Carroll is the great religious statistician. But mere numbers are not spiritual power.