There Is a Lesson in It
By Editor
There Is a Lesson in It.—An exchange contains the news that the Mennonite Church in Pennsylvania has divided itself into two parts, those who use tobacco and those who do not. The separation was probably brought about by those who do not indulge in that unpleasant practise. The unclean in this life are not strenuously opposed to mingling with the clean. They rather insist upon doing it, even in the face of the discomfort it may cause the other party. The use of tobacco has always had a defiling effect upon the person of the one who uses it, and the fiat of the King is that nothing that defiles can enter His realms. Heaven's final declaration is, "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still;" and that leaves him forever on the outside of the city of God. The Word mentions several classes of those unfit for the companionship of God and angels, and among those classes are idolators. He who bends down his dignity and his purity before the fetish of the noxious weed is certainly not a true, whole-hearted worshiper of the King of kings. Gratifying a depraved appetite is paying homage to the thing we crave, and stands between us and our duty to God. Is not the separation above noted a striking forerunner of the separation that will finally take place between the clean and the unclean? It is an object-lesson worthy of thoughtful consideration. Furnishing such a lesson, it is just as well that the separation has taken place.