Making Void the Word by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 29, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 22.

Making Void the Word.

By Editor

The Catholic Mirror, referring recently to the death of John Alexander Dowie, and some of his vagaries, declares: "The end is not yet, nor will he while there are people who, casting away the word of God which is the bread of life, snatch greedily at the stones handed to them by designing men, who are richer in the wisdom of the children of this generation than in anything else." It would seem as if that were real good medicine for the Catholic Mirror itself to take. One of the great means by which Dowie deceived his dupes was the ornate ceremonialism which he borrowed from the Roman Catholic Church, his compulsory tithing system which he borrowed from the Mormons, and his own imperious personality and wonderfully persuasive voice by which he cowed and won the hearts of the impressive. But thereby he made void the word of God, just as truly as the Roman Catholic Church has made void the word of God that it may keep its traditions. If men had followed the word of God in the beginning of the Dark Ages we would have been spared all that intolerance and persecution, all the trouble between Church and State, all the differences in religious creed at the present time.