Religious Jesting by Herder

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 7, 1865

Religious Jesting.

By Herder

WIT and sorry ridicule in matters of religion, are always attended with very evil consequences. They sort so very rarely with mature, cool reason, and calm consideration, that they always rather displace these qualities, just in proportion as they prevail in the soul. The more habituated a person becomes to the reading and utterance of mere witticisms, the more does he incapacitate himself for sober deliberation. At every turn, derisive mirth steps in with its laughing mien. It throws itself athwart the path of investigation, and cuts up such a series of antics that we are entirely turned aside from our course. We try once more to reflect, but the jest returns; we laugh again, let go inquiry, and never attain to the knowledge of the truth.—Herder.