CAUSES OF SPIRITUAL DECLENSION.
By E. P. Marvin
[By E. P. Marvin, in Gospel Message.] IN reply to your inquiry, I will give you an epitome of the view of many of God's faithful witnesses as to the signs of the times, in which I profoundly concur. There are two great masterly causes for the present defection in the spiritual life of the church, and the decrease of the conversions:— 1. The destructive criticism which impairs and undermines faith, "the mother grace," in clergy and laity. 2. Our splendid, intellectual, materialistic, and secular civilization bewitches the people with a craze of money-making, worldly pleasure, and monumental egotism. Christ is crucified between two thieves, business and pleasure. God shows us the remedy: believe God, and come out from the world. From these two roots crop out some seven off-shoots, or manifestations:— 1. The neglect of home religion and devotional meetings, to counteract the outside influence of worldliness and secular education. 2. The frenzy of pleasure in worldly amusements and the functions of hypocritical and hollow-hearted society. "Society" is now doing more to injure the spiritual life of our city churches than the saloons. 3. "The amusement heresy and cooking-stove apostasy" in the churches, opening a wide door for fellowship with the world in the merchandising, feasting, and fun. The less piety a church has, the more oysters, ice-cream, and fun it takes to run it, and the faster it runs from God. 4. The general and unprecedented prevalence of novel-reading among church-members and Sunday-school children, and the rehashing of them even in the pulpit. 5. The multiplication of special days which simply create and nourish the love of novelties outside of the Gospel, and which belong to a corrupted or a chromo Christianity. 6. The craze of organization in the church, added to outside lodges, which cumbers and confuses the church with the clatter of unblest machinery, promotes worldly formality and the clannishness of classes rather than the catholicity of Christianity. 7. Last, but not least, the secular, sensational, and cowardly preaching of the day, which changes the emphasis from eternity to time. The near future will witness a separation. Christ will soon call His people out, either perpendicularly by His coming, or horizontally by secession.