p. 16 | POST-MORTEM CHARITY by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 13, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 40.

POST-MORTEM CHARITY.

By Editor

Rev. D. A. Dryden, of Gilroy, Cal., a pioneer Methodist minister, but latterly a Swedenborgian, died recently. A striking feature of the occurrence is that some twenty years ago he advanced certain heterodox theories, notably concerning the resurrection, which his ministerial colaborers could not indorse, and he was finally desposed from the ministry. He afterward drifted into Swedenborgianism, and died a minister of that faith. Now that he is dead, his former Methodist associates are almost gushing over with laudations of his virtues. Here is an extract from the too-late charity of one of the more prominent of them:—

"The genial, vivacious, versatile Dryden dead! What a brotherly duty it would have been to follow that honest man to the grave. We did not know; the connection had been broken—needlessly broken, as I must think. Our zeal for orthodoxy ran wildly away with our charity. His error concerning the resurrection of the body, as compared with Bishop Foster's, was mild as dawn compared with the blaze of full-orbed day. The bishop's is more elaborate

and a thousand times more influential. But he is a bishop! . . . I devoutly believe that his [Dryden's] heart was right in the sight of God toward men. My only doubt of meeting him in the heavenly sphere arises from the fear that, as Whitefield said of Wesley, he will be so far above me that I shall not catch a glimpse of his exceeding glory."

We shall be interested to see how this experience of regret for withheld charity will in the future affect the writer of the above memoriam. The last time we heard him talk, his "zeal for [assumed] orthodoxy" was still running "wildly away with his charity." He was at that time advocating a stringent Sunday law, the effect of which he well knew would lead to the imprisonment of honest men who should conscientiously exercise their God-given right to work six days after resting on the Sabbath day according to the commandment; and when he well knew it would lead to the fine or imprisonment of other honest men who might exercise their God-given freedom of conscience in the matter of Sunday observance. Confession is good, but true penitence means forsaking error as well as confessing it. May he never again allow his zeal for orthodoxy to run away with his charity; and may his brethren in the ministry be admonished by his regret.