IGNORANCE AND BIGOTRY by R. F. C.

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 17, 1860

"IGNORANCE AND BIGOTRY."

By R. F. C.

"When we see a handful of persons whose graces and virtues are in no sense superior to those of their neighbors, claiming to be the sole favorites of heaven, merely because they have adopted an ism, or theory, of whose truth others cannot be convinced, we are reminded of the rooster which acts as if he thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. In their littleness they fancy that God can have no purpose in doing anything in this world, which does not have respect to them.

We are reminded to say this by the following extract from one of our correspondents: 'We have in our neighborhood a small society of professed christians calling themselves Second Adventists, who proscribe charity very much. They imagine themselves Noahs in a world of ungodly churches, which have heaped to themselves teachers having itching ears, blind leaders of the blind, men who will not endure sound doctrine. They believe in the seventh day as the Sabbath, that at death the soul sleeps with the body till the resurrection, and that then the wicked will be burned up both soul and body. According to their view, there will be a hundred and forty-four thousand on the earth when it is destroyed, who will be ready to meet the Bridegroom. They are always ready for contention and have caused us a great amount of trouble.'

One can feel no bitterness towards those who have become victims of such nonsense, because their range of thinking is too limited, to admit of their rising to the serene elevation of truth and love. One passage affords hope in regard to them, and that is this, that Christ 'can have compassion on those who are ignorant, and on them who are out of the way; for that He himself also is compassed with infirmity.' And the apostle Peter teaches us how to deal with such, when he says: 'for so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.' We must cancel their hatred with love, and overcome their evil with good.'—New York Chronicle.

With what a pious grace does the editor conclude his article, compared with the sneering style and spirit of the whole. He finds it much more convenient to sneer at and despise the "littleness" and "ignorance" of the people in question, than to correct their ignorance and errors by a presentation of truth from the word of God. It is easier to call them "victims of nonsense," with an affected commiseration, and a disavowal of that "bitterness" which is still apparent to the reader, and so let them pass. His honest correspondent was evidently in deep trouble, or, in his own words, "a great amount of trouble," but the editor offers nothing for his relief, and only teaches him to despise those arguments which he cannot meet, and to cancel the imaginary hatred of those troublers of Israel by a noble, high-soaring and overbearing love.

The people of other ages have been troubled in a similar manner. It was said of Lot, by the fashionable sinners of his day: 'This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge.' Gen. xix, 9. It was fashionable in Sodom to break the seventh commandment; it is now fashionable to break the fourth. Ahab said to Elijah, "Art thou he that troubled Israel? and he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." 1 Kings xviii, 17, 18. It was at that time fashionable to break the first commandment. In the days of our Saviour it was fashionable to break the fifth commandment by a certain ostensibly pious tradition. Matt. xv, 1-9. Jesus and "a handful of persons" caused them a "great amount of trouble." Doubtless they attempted to sneer down the truth by sneering at the "carpenter" and the fishermen that followed him. Perhaps they tried in this way to love them out of their folly and "ignorance," and "overcome their evil with good."

How much more manly it would be, in all such cases, to take the Bible and defend their position and expose the opposite errors. How much better "by well-doing," that is, doing the commandments of God, "to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men."

R. F. C.