Spiritual Declension by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 12, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 24.

Spiritual Declension.

By Editor

IN another column will be found an article on "The Religious World," in which the backslidden condition of the churches is affirmed as a state of things known to all. Much might have been quoted in confirmation of the statement, but the writer did not deem it necessary. We, however, present a view here from the editor of the Western Christian Advocate (Methodist Episcopal), of May 19, 1893, published in Cincinnati:

"The class-books [of the church] are filled with names of unconverted men and women. Official members may be found in box, dress circle, and parquet of opera and theater. Communicants take in the races, and give and attend card parties and dances. The distinction between inside and outside is so obscure that men smile when asked to unite with the church, and sometimes tell us they find the best men outside. . . . The enforcement of the unmistakable letter of the Discipline for a single year would cut our membership in half, bankrupt our missionary society, close our fashionable churches, paralyze our connectional interests, and leave our pastors and bishops unpaid and in distress. But the fact remains that one of two things must happen,—the Discipline must purge the church, or God's Holy Spirit will seek other organized agencies. The ax is laid at the root of the tree. The call is to repentance. God's work must be done. If we are in the way, He will remove us."

We prefer Bishop Moore's statement to our own. We can not believe that the Methodist Church is worse than others. The spiritual declension is general, and is a sign that Christ's coming is near. We are "in the last days." 2 Tim. 3:1-5; Matt. 24:12-14.

A Wrong Conception.

Father D. S. Phelan, editor of the Western Watchman, in a recent sermon said, "The Reformation stripped the temples of God of all their beauty of architecture and poetry of worship. Where there is no beauty and no poetry there God is not. They abolished saints and fast days and destroyed all symbolism and idealism in religion." Evidently Father Phelan's early education prevents him from seeing the one great truth that what God desires is beauty of character—beauty in souls, and not mere architectural beauty. Greece is an example of the age when the vilest kind of morals flourished, where there was the most of beauty of architecture and poetry and art. On the other hand it has ever been true that when God's people were nearest to Him there was the least of its outward expression in mere stone and wood. When God brought Israel out from the land of Egypt under Moses there was little, if any, manifestation of art, but certain great characters shone out like stars in wonderful beauty. At the very time when Solomon was giving wonderful expression in grand and elaborately ornamental edifices for the worship of God and other things, he was sinking into idolatry. When the church was reformed thru Hezekiah and Josiah, the idolatrous temples were thrown down and God Himself was recognized. So it was when the Lord Jesus Christ came; neither Samaritan temple nor Jewish temple was necessary to the true worship of God, but wherever the true heart was found. Men have builded mighty and costly and elaborate structures to the name of Peter and John and Paul, but these great soldiers of God reached the very height of their faith and devotion under the greatest and sorest of trials, knowing nothing of the outward beauty of cold stone or marble save as they saw it in temples upon which God had written "Ichabod;" but it was in the life and the transformed character of man, yea, of one Man, more precious in God's sight than all the cathedrals and churches in Christendom.