More Witnesses on the Stand.
Bro. White: I send for the Review the following extracts: "We have eloquent preachers, popular men; our churches are thronged with intelligent worshipers; the membership is increasing from year to year; and yet we assert that the ministry is not what it should be, and we believe the pulpit is losing its power. The interest and earnestness of prayer are abating to a large degree. The form remains but the life is departed. Christianity is indulging in fashion, and giving away to the spirit of the world. Dress, amusements, entertainments, fritter away its time, secularize its spirit, and eat out its very soul! At watering places, in the theatre, and among the mazes of the dance, you may find Christians (!!) even among the foremost, and the most frivolous! and can their profession be any thing more than a name! Spiritual-mindedness is almost unknown. Listen where a company of professed Christians are assembled: What engrosses their conversation? If you hear one word of practical heartfelt piety, it will be a matter of devout congratulation, for it is not common."—Unity Magazine for Dec., 1853. The reader can, by turning to 2 Tim. iii, 1-8, recognize in the above extract, a perfect correspondence in sentiment, applicable to the time in which we live. "The moral law is just as unchangeable as God himself. This law is a universal one, that is to say, it is intended to govern all intellectual beings, in the universe of God."—Unity Magazine, May, 1854. When we think of the opposition manifested toward the law of God, by both preachers and people connected with the church which publishes and supports the above-mentioned magazine (United Brethren), we cannot but advise them to read the following extract from the writings of Archbishop Leighton. "There are but ten precepts of the law of God, and two of them, so far as concerns the outward organs, (the tongue) and vent of the sins there forbidden, are bestowed on the tongue as though it were ready to fly out against both God and man, if not thus bridled." But the time for abounding iniquity, and extraordinary suffering has overtaken us. Let us therefore be patient brethren, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. The Lord will carry on his work gloriously. Let us be diligent through grace in carrying on ours; there are some indications of the fall of the latter rain; God's broken law is being sealed, and the testimony is soon to be bound up. The work here will soon be finished, and the 144,000 will soon be gathered home. The following pictures of the times are from an eastern paper. "BLOOD-THIRSTY PREACHING."
"Since blood-thirsty preaching, by a portion of the clergy, has become the order of the day, the increase of crime in our country has assumed the most alarming proportions. Although these exceptional preachers are few in numbers—the exceptions, and not the rule of the sacred profession—yet their zeal and great activity often throw in the shade the better example and truly Christian lives of the larger number of their professional brethren. No civilized country ever presented such a frightful catalogue of crimes, especially crimes against human life, as the police records and the newspapers of our country are now constantly spreading before the public gaze." "Seymour, Conn., July 13, 1865. "Messrs. Editors:—The town of Seymour is alive this summer. Picnics, fairs, festivals and the like, are the order. The last was an ice-cream festival, given for the benefit of the Congregational Society, Rev. Mr. Quick, pastor, in the basement of their church. There were present, lots of 'fair women and brave men,' and as at all festivals, cream disappeared, and fun and frolic prevailed. The church made money." This effort to mix up the religion of the gospel, with the world, the flesh and the Devil, is only one among many such instances at the present day, when men are to be 'lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.'