DRIFTING by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1880

DRIFTING.

By Editor

MR. EDWARD EVERETT HALE'S article in this month's North American, on the "Insecurity of the Pulpit," is exceedingly timely, and indicates that some of the more liberal-minded among the ministry have caught hold of the truth which members of the laity have realized, but have hardly dared to express, that clergymen are losing their influence because they are not willing to be honest. The researches of modern science have upset many of the current beliefs of the past, in the minds of those who are not bound down by habit or ignorance to an acceptance as true of every word in the Bible. Many men and women of to-day do not believe the world was made in seven days, or that the sun stood still at the command of Joshua; and, what is more, they feel pretty well assured that their ministers are equally skeptical on these points, or, to use Mr. Hale's words, have "their own private ways of explaining the inconsistencies and getting over the disagreements."

It is needless to point out that this impression goes far to neutralize the influence of a minister in every other direction. His congregation, if they are endowed with ordinary common sense, are not to be satisfied by being told that in the catechism or the thirty-nine articles the whole duty and faith of man are summed up. What they want their pastor to do is to satisfy or reconcile doubts that could not have existed when these venerable confessions of faith were drawn up, and the ministry will lose more and more of its influence, in proportion as its desire to shirk its duty becomes more and more manifest. Why this timidity should exist is obvious enough. The church is an organization which controls to a great extent the thoughts of its chief representatives. As political leaders usually work for the success of the party, rather than the success of those principles which the party is created to carry out, so the ministers frequently look more to the advance and conservation of the church, as a religious association, than to the immediate help their counsel can give to their doubting and often unhappy parishioners.

The above from the Boston Herald appeared in an exchange with the following comment:—

"No one need have any fears that anything scientifically true will conflict in the least degree with what is stated in the Sacred Scriptures. There are plenty of scientific speculations afloat, which are opposed to scientific facts and things revealed in the Bible, but it may be boldly affirmed that there is not known a fact in science which is not in harmony with the teaching found in the Holy Bible. The conflict between truth and error, light and darkness, the Lord and Satan, is waxing fiercer continually. Every Christian needs on 'the whole armor of God,' to 'stand against the wiles of the devil.' Let us be brave for the right."