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Danger

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 13, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 36.

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Danger

By Editor

THE Baptist Chronicle not long ago had a thoughtful article on "The Danger of the Rapids." It speaks truly. It goes on to say in substance that the danger on the river is not in the calm, deep current; it is where the river runs over a rocky, shallow bottom and over sand-bars, and that this is just as true in the mental and moral life. "When the currents of thought run swiftly men lose their finer sense of discrimination, and under the nervous stimulant of speed think loosely upon questions which should engage their profound consideration." Out of such movements grow mobs and wars and the mushroom movements of Christianity.
It remarks: "The faster the current of religious enthusiasm flows the more dangers there are along the path of its progress. It is when the stream of Christian endeavor reaches the flood-tide stage that there is the most danger. It is when the cords are the longest that we need to make the stakes the most secure." So came the great apostasy of the first centuries. The slogan at that time was, "The world for Christ," and "every power which could be commanded was turned in the direction of world conquest." And yet out of that unguided, mad rush there came the union of church and state and the Dark Ages.
And so the Chronicle points out the great danger just now in what is called this church federation, altho it does not mention it by name; but it feels that "the churches of Christ face a crisis today very similar to the one which the apostolic churches faced. The cry then was, 'The world for Christ in this generation;' that is the cry today. The demand then was union for the sake of a lost world; that is the demand now." And it asks the question: "Can Baptists enter this or any other movement without compromise? Let the past answer. Can the Baptists compromise the truths of God? Let the individual conscience make reply." "A Protestant hierarchy will as surely fail in spirit and purpose to evangelize the world as has the papal hierarchy. Beware of the rapids. And again I say, Beware."