A HARBINGER OF THE ADVENT.
By S.
A RE there any signs now fulfilling which tell us that the coming of our Redeemer is drawing nigh? Let us see. According to the Word of God, there was to come, at a certain period in the history of the church, "a falling away." Here is the announcement: "That day [the day of Christ's coming] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." 2 Thess. 2:3. That falling away was to occur prior to the second coming of Christ. Let us examine the situation. The chief trend of pulpit teaching now is along the line of "civic righteousness," whatever that may mean, and farther and farther away from the soul-stirring teachings of the true evangelist, the burden of whose heart is the salvation of souls. Sit down to-day in the luxuriously-appointed church, and listen to the words that roll from the tongue of the polished speaker, and it is not difficult to determine that you are not listening to the expression of Christ's yearning pleading for the souls of men, but to the cold, comfortless philosophies of human wisdom. What is the result of this, and what is the cause?—The result; the cold formalism of the pulpit philosophy finds its echo in the lives of those who drink it in from week to week, until the vitality of their Christianity is quenched at the fountain, dies out of the heart, and leaves a form of clay, where should have been the living, moving, burden-bearing, man of God, a harvester, a shepherd. Then, in the field where such an one should have carried on his work, weeds are growing, wolves are ravening, and souls are perishing; while in many cases the house dedicated to the service of God has been given over frequently and regularly to feasting and pleasure. Dancing clubs and boxing clubs have been organized in church edifices, and the dance, the card game, and the boxing bout have been carried on within its dedicated walls. While many have not gone to this extent, the influence that has made these things possible has worked upon them also, lowering the tone of their spiritual vitality, and hindering the work they might otherwise have done. A great religious body has decided to abolish the prohibition which had stood so long against card-playing and dancing, and theater-going, and permit its members everywhere to indulge in these things, and this at the very time when the evils of the dance, the degradation to which it leads, have been faithfully set before the people by converted dancing masters. A great, popular religious journal declares editorially that the restriction against these pastimes never ought to have been adopted. As a result of the lifting of these restrictions, we hear of a "progressive euchre party" held in a great New York church, in which 2,400 church members took part, and in which the players played—gambled—for some 250 prizes put up by the church giving the card party. In the same city, at about the same time, the members of a certain military post were invited to attend church in a body, in full uniform and bearing side arms, thus bringing into the church, the established body of Christ on earth, those symbols of the deadly, devastating business of war. One can not imagine Jesus Christ encouraging or permitting anything of this kind, nor is there anything in the work of the apostles that can possibly be construed into a toleration of anything of the kind. But the prevalence of these things to-day indicates a deplorable falling away from the first principles of the Gospel of Christ. In the conduct of the individual member there is coming in more and more the idea of going with the world as far as we can, "in order to win them," but the prime essential of keeping as close to Christ as possible assumes, with such ones, a secondary place, and finally is covered up entirely by the policy of the world. Following this policy, we hear of a clergyman dining with a fashionable club, and telling its members that "clergymen are too highly specialized nowadays—so highly that a glass of wine or a cigar is denied them." It was plainly evident by other remarks made by this clergyman at this banquet that he had not denied himself in the matter of the wine at least. Pleasure-loving church members are patterning closely after the ways of "society;" and the farther and faster the church follows after society, the farther and faster "society" follows after pleasures that are wholly carnal; and thus is being accelerated that race away from God and into the pleasures and pitfalls of Satan. It is no wonder that our Lord, looking down through the ages to the time when He should come back to this earth, was led to ask, "Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" Luke 18:8. The very question indicates that faith will not be plentiful at that time. The evidence now accumulating before us is indicative of the same thing. The great mass of Christendom seems to have lost its hold upon the arm of the Infinite, and to be leaning more and more heavily on the arm of the world. Even in theological schools, where young men are supposed to be fitted for the ministry, that bane of the world, the secret society, is fostered; and evolution, the contradiction of God's Word, is publicly espoused. Thus warm love for God and the salvation of souls is dying out. A chill is falling over the popular church, like the chill that follows sunset. Evolution is usurping the place of the Creator, and man is being taught to usurp the place of Christ, and become his own saviour. We are in the time of the last great falling away, which was to take place just prior to the second coming of Christ; and these fulfilling signs are to us a harbinger of that nearing event.