4. ANOTHER important condition in the receiving of the Holy Spirit is right motives. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” James 4:3.
Many complain that their prayers are not answered. The apostle here tells us why many prayers are not answered in the way that we expect. It is because the motive underlying the asking is wrong. The prayers are prompted by a selfish desire. The Spirit testifies of Christ. It exalts him, not self; and any318asking for the purpose of exalting ourselves is a wrong motive. To the minister who desires the Holy Spirit that he may preach better and be more popular than some other brother, the Lord says, Ye “receive not, because ye ask amiss.” To the teacher in any school, to the officer in any church or Sabbath-school, who might desire and pray for the Holy Spirit that he might do better work than some other person and thus make a better show, the Lord says, Ye “receive not, because ye ask amiss.” If we desire the Spirit from any selfish motive whatsoever, in order that self can be more prominent, the Lord says, Ye “receive not, because ye ask amiss.”
In the case of Simon the sorcerer we have a striking example of one desiring the Spirit from a wrong or selfish motive. He had witnessed the working of the Spirit in the labors of the apostles, and said to Peter, “Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.” He was willing to pay for the Spirit, to give a considerable sum for it, no doubt. He could use it, he thought, to make money and be in the public eye. There are many like Simon to-day who would gladly buy the Spirit as merchandise, rather than control the fleshly desires and keep the temple of their bodies clean as his abiding-place.
Peter said to him: “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.” Acts 8:19-23.
The Spirit is a gift from God. It can never be bought nor bribed. It is a gift to us for service and personal victory, and never for display.
5. Another condition worthy of notice is that of humility. “Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.” 1 Peter 5:6. The opposite of humility is pride. To be humble is to yield up our pride. Pride is a terrible sin; it changed Lucifer, the covering cherub, into Satan, the prince of devils. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Prov. 16:18.
The Spirit of God leads to humility. “He shall not speak of himself.” John 16:13. “He shall glorify me.” Verse 14. The work of the Spirit is ever to exalt Christ. The one in whom the Spirit dwells will say, like John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30. Pride is an attribute of the carnal heart. Pride, like rank weeds, grows in a dunghill. And really what are we that we should be proud? Alexander Maclaren says: “Granted that you are superior to me in something or other. Well, what does that matter? One mole-hill is a little higher than another; they are all about the same distance from the sun. I remember a friend of mine who, when a child, being told that the sun was ninety-five millions of miles off, asked whether it was from the up-stairs window or the down-stairs. And that is about the difference between men if they will bring themselves into comparison with the only true standard.”
It is the “I” that is the barrier to spiritual progress. That is the trouble in the seventh chapter of Romans. The carnal “I” is living, never having been slain, and blocks the way to victory. The word I occurs more than thirty times in the last sixteen verses. It is found as many as six times in one short verse. “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” In the eighth chapter the “I” disappears, and the “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” is found instead. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to destroy the ego and exalt the Saviour.
6. Another important condition in the reception of the Spirit of God is that of the proper use of the tongue. “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.” James 3:6.
How often this “fire of hell” has been kindled in churches and communities by the improper use of the tongue! Nothing will drive the Holy Spirit from the life more effectually than a wrong use of this unruly member. An unbridled, unconsecrated tongue may be a remorseless tool of Satan. The writer knows of no more infernal instrument of evil than the tongue of the gossiper, the tattler, the backbiter, and the slanderer. There are many tearful eyes, broken hearts, ruined homes, and blasted lives, made such by a wrong use of the tongue. Churches have been ruined and neighborhoods disgraced by busybodies and scandal-mongers. How unchristlike such a course is! How the holy God must loathe such work! From such the gentle, peaceful Spirit quietly withdraws, leaving the heart cold and hard. Unless the heart yields to the gentle pleading of the Spirit, the case of all such seems quite hopeless.
The apostle Paul exhorts: “Let no corrupt communications proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” “Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.” Eph. 4:29-31; 5:4. All this unholy brood can be summed up as a lack of love in the heart.
For the words, “which are not convenient,” the Revised Version gives “which are not befitting.” Then for Christians “corrupt communications”—impure words, all “evil-speaking,” tattling, tale-bearing, gossiping, all jesting, and joking, and light, chaffy talk, and story-telling—are “not befitting.” Only such speech as comes from a heart void of anger or wrath, where no clamor or railing is found, and such as will minister to, edify, and build up the intellectual and moral character, is befitting.
How many professed Christians there are who are addicted to the habit of telling jokes and funny stories, which neither minister grace nor edify. This conversation is not pure; much of it borders on the vulgar and questionable, and can well be classed with the common talk of the man in the street. It is sometimes difficult at public gatherings to distinguish from the conversation who are professed Christians and who are not. Those who are real Christians are, of course, readily distinguished.
This unsanctified use of the tongue we are told grieves the Holy Spirit. The word translated “grieve” means literally to cause sorrow. Grief is sorrow. Here the gracious affection and tender love of the Spirit is revealed. He is represented as being in sorrow, sad and weeping, clothed in mourning, so to speak, by the empty, frivolous, impure, vulgar speech of his professed people. The experience of many can testify to the truthfulness of the Word of God in this matter. How unprepared we feel, after a social time spent together in spinning yarns and cracking the latest jokes, to go and labor for souls and minister to them the words of life. Suppose after having spent an evening together during which, instead of pure, edifying, intellectual conversation, much common street talk, slang remarks, funny stories, and witty, pert sayings have been the order, we are asked to go and pray for some poor, sick person. It may be the person has no hope in God, and this is our only chance to speak to him before he is ushered into the presence of the eternal Judge. How empty we feel! We realize that the Holy Spirit has been greatly displeased, and his presence has been quenched in the heart. How we wish we had been praying and meditating on the things that are lovely and of good report instead of upon the cheap and frivolous!
I feel confident that this sin, which is so well-nigh universal, is doing as much to grieve the Spirit of God from hearts, and is responsible for as much barrenness of soul and lack of warm, earnest, Christian experience, as any other evil among God’s people. This wicked habit is wholly unnecessary, and ought to come to an end.
James says, “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.” Once we have the victory over the tongue, we shall have the key to complete victory. Are we to continue longer to grieve from our hearts the Spirit of a holy God, and carry about with us a dry, powerless Christian experience, unable to battle against temptation, or lift up other souls bowed down with sin? Or shall we refuse longer to wound the heart of the Spirit with sorrow by this course, and claim the blessing which may be ours through faith?
Christian Growth and Backsliding
THE attainment of Christian character is the work of a lifetime. It is wrought out through many experiences of joy and sorrow, of pain and pleasure. It is like the mighty oak which appears first as a tender shoot, but through the ministry of sunshine and rain, through the nourishment which it receives from the soil and air and water, it grows from day to day. Through resistance of storm and tempest it strikes its roots down more deeply into mother earth, and as the result of this process of growth and resistance it becomes strong and hardy.
IN the Lord’s providence the experiences of life are sanctified to the accomplishment of growth in the Christian character. The child of God, by the sincere milk of the word and by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, grows up into Christ. Affliction, adversity, sorrow, trial, all have their places in the development of the character that is wrought out. If day by day the follower of the Master submits himself to the will of God; if he patiently, submissively, and uncomplainingly follows where the Master leads; if he receives with faith the ingrafted word, he grows strong in heart, like the mighty oak, and becomes a stalwart pillar in the church of God.
THE work of backsliding is not the process of a day. Its development takes time. One is not transformed in a moment from a servant of the Master into an emissary of the evil one. The first departure is in the cherishing of sinful desires, the entrance of unbelief. Idols are set up in the heart. The sensitive soul becomes hardened, the conscience seared, and step by step the once earnest Christian is lured on by Satan, and finally becomes his willing slave.
WE should pray for spiritual enlightenment to be able to detect the first approach of sin. We should be so committed to the service of our King that when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will raise up in our hearts a standard against him. Our consecration should be so complete that when the enemy presents before us his temptations, they will awaken no response in our hearts.
BY watchfulness, by prayerfulness, by constant distrust of self and absolute dependence upon the Lord and his strength, we shall be able to hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. We have nothing in ourselves upon which we can depend. Our wisdom is but foolishness, our strength but weakness. But in our mighty Helper we have one who is able to complete even in our experience the good work which he has begun. This is now our hope, and if we are faithful it will prove our crown of rejoicing in the end.
Emphasizing the Great Things
By Francis McLellan Wilcox
This is an age of speculative philosophy. We see in the great Christian church a wide departure from the old fundamentals of faith and practise. Doctrines that a few years ago were counted as a part of cardinal faith are now relegated to the past as old-fashioned and out of date. While we see no tendency in the Seventh-day Adventist Church to discard or discount the great fundamental principles of the Word of God, we stand in constant danger of emphasizing them less strongly than we should. Satan is well pleased if he can divert our minds into the serious consideration of non-essentials, and lead us to spend precious time and energy in the discussion of many details.
Israel of old did this, and they did it in proportion as they lost out of their knowledge the power of the truth of God. In the same degree that their service became to them a form, it degenerated to meaningless ceremony; they spent their energies in the discussion of trivial details,—strivings about the law, questions of genealogy, abstruse questions of philosophy. These things engaged their minds to the exclusion of the vital truths of the gospel.
At the present time we hear of one church seriously discussing the question as to which is greater, God or principle. Another little company has been greatly exercised in seeking to determine who Melchizedek was. There are many questions, of this latter character particularly, that are interesting to consider, and in their proper place appropriate for study, but in the contemplation of some of the details of Scripture truth let us not lose sight of the great fundamentals of the Word of God.
God has called this denomination into existence to give the warning message for this last day and generation. The message to prepare a people to stand in the day of Christ's coming is a message of reform. Its purpose is to call men back to the old, forsaken paths of truth, and to a higher and holier plane of Christian living. It presents Christ as man's all-sufficient sacrifice and Saviour; his ministry as the only means by which the merits of that sacrifice may be made available; his righteousness, obtained through faith, as the one source of eternal life; his coming as the realization of the Christian's hope. It enjoins the binding claims of God's great law, restoring to its rightful place the downtrodden Sabbath of Jehovah, and warning men against the false claims of the counterfeit Sabbath and against its enforcement by legal enactment. It brings to view the work of the investigative judgment, the final reward to be given to the righteous, and the punishment to be meted out to the wicked at the last great day. This comprehends, in brief, the special message for this day.
Shall we neglect the study and presentation of these great truths, and spend our time in the discussion of some abstruse question of philosophy, like the one first mentioned, “Which is greater, God or principle”? Doing so shows that we fail to recognize the breadth and greatness of our work as a denomination, and the mission for which we have been called into the world.
Let us not seek to get away from the great fundamentals. In these fundamentals our churches to-day need to be grounded anew; in these our children and young people need to be instructed. They need to be emphasized in our training-schools. We can not afford to spend the time of the class in the discussion of unimportant details even though their consideration may be fascinating, while we neglect to place emphasis where emphasis belongs, upon the great fundamental principles.
We can find to-day many one-ideaed men, who will center upon details; who will ramble off into the speculative and unknown; who in assumed superiority of greater knowledge will seek to show their wisdom by haggling over this or that detail. We need to be accurate. We need to safeguard every expression. We need to become so well instructed that we shall be able to give a reason of our hope to every man that asks us; and with this we need to comprehend the truth of God in its magnitude, and fix our eyes, not upon some little detail and magnify that to the exclusion of all else, but upon the great fundamentals. In320these days of doubt and questioning and infidelity may God keep us true and loyal, firm and unwavering, in the carrying forward of the message of which he has made us the conservators. Let us pray Heaven to make and keep us well balanced, men and women of good sense and sober judgment. F. M. W.
Making Men Moral by Law
By C. M. S.
WHEN the spirit of liberty so far permeated the mass of the people that men in the world and in the church began to see that principles of truth and justice were being violated in the union between church and state, the emissary of evil coined another phrase, “the union of religion and the state,” and is now industriously pressing upon the people the necessity of that union. But the two mean the same, and are put forward for the same purpose—dominance over men’s consciences and their religious rights, that through a religion of force the true triumphs of the gospel may be hindered.
The same turn is now being taken upon the idea of making men moral by law. The common people and their representatives in the legislatures have been made to see the folly of the idea that character can be shaped and men made moral by human legislation. In the Examiner (Baptist) of March 13 the editor devotes considerable space to that idea. He says: “It is true that you can not make men moral by law, but you can remove the facilities which make it easy for them to be immoral;” and then asks, “Is not that a gain for morality?” The same erroneous idea is manifest here that is seen in the idea of the union of religion and the state as a substitute for the union of church and state. In the latter proposition, it is assumed that the state exists for the sole purpose of advancing the interests of the gospel and can not serve its ends unless guided and controlled by the church. In this idea of morality by human legislation, it is assumed that it is the purpose of legislation to make men moral; that the state exists for the purpose of enforcing morals, or making men moral by law “indirectly if not directly.” But if that is the business of government, then certainly the government ought to be under the exclusive control of those who are commissioned to teach religion and morals, for they can not be separated. The state ought to have the best material it can obtain to help it in carrying on its work; and certainly consecrated ministers of the gospel ought to know more about how to teach morals than does the lay member and the unconverted man. This idea, if carried to its logical conclusion, would demand as strong a union of church and state as could be established.
The state stands as the guardian of the rights of the people. It is the protector of the people. It is the business of the state to see to it that the rights of individuals are not trespassed upon. It is not difficult to see wherein a state is within its rights in enacting legislation for the prohibition of the liquor traffic. The liquor traffic is destroying the homes of the people; is taking away the property of some that the unnatural appetites of others may be gratified. It takes away the reason and control of some men, and through that the lives of other men and of women and children are taken away. They have a right to life, and the state must protect them in that right, just as it protects them in prohibiting the indiscriminate sale of other poisons. With the state protecting its citizens in their individual rights and with the church attending to the work which her divine Lord commissioned her to do, both organizations are fulfilling their God-ordained missions. The morals of the people are then being looked after by those properly commissioned to do that work.
Every good law helps to make the world a better and safer place to live in; but when the state attempts to make laws for the purpose of correcting the morals of men and women, or of influencing and guiding them in matters of faith and religion, the state is out of its place and attempting to do the work of the church; the church is shifting its responsibility onto the shoulders of the state; both organizations are then in the wrong; the rights of the people are invaded; and persecution is as sure to follow as night is certain to follow day. The state legislates to protect its citizens when it does what the state was established to do. The church labors to bring men’s lives into harmony with the gospel of Christ when she does the work she was commissioned to do. With each attending to its own proper field of endeavor, the interests of humanity and of the kingdom of Christ are best conserved. With either invading the field of the other, there is confusion, strife, hypocrisy, persecution, and the ruin of souls whom the church was set to lead into the kingdom of God.
C. M. S.
Saying, Where Is the Promise of His Coming?
By W. A. S.
WHEN was it to be said?—“In the last days;” Peter forewarned us. The last days have come, and we hear on many sides the cry, “Where is the promise of his coming?”
Here is the New York Independent, one of the leading religious journals of the land, describing as “dangerous,” the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the personal second coming of Christ to this earth. Commenting on the teaching of these truths in the Sunday School Times, the Independent says:—
This literalism suggests that the editorship has passed over into the hands of those few extremists who hold to the personal second coming of our Lord to earth to renew all things.
The particular paragraph to which exception is taken is so plain a statement of the “blessed hope” of the Christian that we quote it:—
This coming, of which his resurrection makes us sure, is as real and definite and literal as was his appearance to Mary or to Peter, or to the disciples in the upper room, when he ate and drank with them. . . . By the coming of Christ, we do not mean his spiritual presence by which we are protected, nor death by which we are summoned into his presence; but we mean his personal, glorious, visible return, when he comes with the clouds of heaven, when he appears “a second time,” when “every eye shall see him,” when this earth which has been shadowed by his cross will be illumined with the glory of his throne.
We are glad that a journal like the Sunday School Times, with so large a circulation among Bible students, is thus calling attention to one of the fundamentals of Bible teaching. But the Independent declares:—
This is not the teaching of the Christian church. It is the teaching of a small fraction of it, a fraction which never learns.
Do we not catch the note of derision in this reference to believers in Christ’s promise to come again? “There shall come in the last days scoffers,” wrote Peter, “saying, Where is the promise of his coming?” 2 Peter 3: 3, 4.
Peter believed in this personal second coming of Jesus. He was in the group to whom Christ said, “Let not your heart be troubled. . . . I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again.” He stood with the disciples who saw Jesus go up bodily into heaven, when the angels gave the promise: “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”
The doctrine of the resurrection of the body and of Christ’s return to this earth was no mere philosophic theory to the disciples. They had been affrighted when Jesus appeared in their midst after his resurrection, when he said to them, “Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” And as Christ was actually and bodily “risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept,”—assurance of the resurrection of all that are Christ’s, “at his coming” (1 Cor. 15: 20, 23),—so also the believers in Jerusalem321were witnesses of a demonstration of the resurrection of the saved through Christ, the first-fruits. The quaking of the earth as Jesus gave up his life on the cross rent the rocks and opened graves round about Jerusalem. “And many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” Matt. 27: 53.
What could philosophic unbelief in a literal resurrection have said there? Thank God for the “blessed hope” and the sure word of promise. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
The New Testament is full of it; and, for that matter, the Old as well. The completion of the whole plan of salvation depends upon the personal second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the “restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.”
We see fulfilled all about us the signs that show that Christ’s coming is “even at the doors.” The cry, “Where is the promise of his coming?” is itself a sign that will encourage believers to proclaim the glad tidings and the solemn warning yet more earnestly. W. A. S.
Signs of Christ’s Coming
By C. M. S.
Are there any signs now fulfilling which tell us that the coming of our Redeemer is drawing nigh? According to the Word of God, there was to come, at a certain period in the history of the church, “a falling away.” This is the announcement:—
“That day [the day of Christ’s coming] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” 2 Thess. 2:3.
That falling away was to come prior to the coming of Christ. The chief trend of pulpit preaching to-day in the great fashionable church organizations is along the line of “civic righteousness,” whatever that may mean, and farther and farther away from the soul-stirring teachings of the true evangelist, the burden of whose heart is the salvation of souls. Sit down to-day in the luxuriously appointed church, and listen to the words that roll from the tongue of the polished speaker, and it is not difficult to determine that you are not listening to the expression of Christ’s yearning pleadings for the souls of men, but to the cold, comfortless philosophies of human wisdom.
What is the result of this? and what is the cause? The result is simply that the cold formalism of the pulpit philosophy finds its echo in the lives of those who drink it in from week to week, until the vitality of their Christianity is quenched at the fountain, dies out of the heart, and leaves a form of clay, where should have been the living, moving, burden-bearing man of God, a harvester, a shepherd. Then, in the field where such a one should have carried on his work, weeds are growing, wolves are ravening, and souls are perishing; while in many cases the house dedicated to the service of God has been given over to feasting and pleasure. Dancing clubs and boxing clubs have been organized in church edifices, and the dance, the card game, and the boxing bout have been carried on within its dedicated walls. While many have not gone to this extent, the influence that has made these things possible has worked upon them also, lowering the tone of their spiritual vitality, and hindering the work they might otherwise have done.
A great religious body has decided to abolish the prohibition which had stood so long against card-playing and dancing and theatergoing, and permit its members everywhere to indulge in these things; and this at the very time when the evils of the dance, the degradation to which it leads, have been faithfully set before the people by converted dancing-masters. A great, popular religious journal declares editorially that the restriction against these pastimes never ought to have been adopted.
As a result of the lifting of these restrictions, we hear of a “progressive euchre party” held in a great New York church, in which 2,400 church-members took part, and in which the players played—gambled—for some 250 prizes put up by the church giving the card-party. The prevalence of such things to-day indicates a deplorable falling away from the first principles of the gospel of Christ.
In the conduct of the individual member there is coming in more and more the idea of going with the world as far as we can, “in order to win them;” but the prime essential of keeping as close to Christ as possible assumes, with such ones, a secondary place, and finally is covered up entirely by the policy of the world. Following this policy, we hear of a clergyman dining with a fashionable club, and telling its members that “clergymen are too highly specialized nowadays—so highly that a glass of wine or a cigar is denied them.” It was plainly evident by other remarks made by this same clergyman that he had not denied himself in the matter of the wine at least.
Pleasure-loving church-members are patterning closely after the ways of “society;” and the farther and faster the church follows after society the farther and faster society follows after pleasures that are wholly carnal and thus is being accelerated that race away from God and into the pleasures and pitfalls of Satan.
In the spirit of confederacy also we find a harbinger of the advent. God has warned his people that when the spirit of confederacy takes hold of the great mass of the people, they who are his must halt, must hold aloof, must not “walk in the way of this people,” nor give their sanction to the confederating idea. But rather, they are to “bind up the testimony,” and “seal the law” among his disciples, and “wait upon the Lord” and “look for him.” See Isa. 8:9-18. It is not merely a coincidence that while the confederacy of the churches of this world is taking place, there is also being carried on that other work of directing men’s attention to the testimony of God and to the law of God, and teaching the people to “wait upon the Lord” and “look for him.”
That confederacy idea was carried a step farther this present year when the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America voted to drop the word Protestant and the Protestant idea out of their organization, in order that there might be cooperation between the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and the Roman Catholic Church. This opens the way for the amalgamation of the two in their objects and operations; and in such amalgamation and such operations Rome will play the leading part. Such a striking illustration of history repeating itself has not been often witnessed.
It is no wonder that our Saviour asked, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” It will be scarce, even as the question indicates; and the evidence now before us shows plainly that we have entered upon that time of scarcity of faith which our Lord foresaw, and which was to be one of the characteristics of the time in which he would come again. The great mass of Christendom seems to have lost its hold upon the arm of the Infinite, and to be leaning more and more heavily upon the arm of the world.
Even in theological schools, where young men are supposed to be fitted for the ministry, that bane of the world, the secret society, is fostered; and evolution and the contradiction and denial of God’s Word are publicly espoused. Thus warm love for God and for the322salvation of souls is dying out. A chill is falling over what is known as the popular church, like the chill that follows sunset. Evolution is usurping the place of the Creator, and man is being taught to usurp the place of Christ, and become his own savior.
We are in the time of the last great falling away, which was to take place just prior to the second coming of Christ; and these fulfilling signs are to us harbingers of that nearing event.
C. M. S.
Money Mad
THAT we have reached a time in the history of the world when money madness is at the root of much of our trouble is the opinion of the Thrice-a-Week World of March 17, 1913. It says:—
What but money madness is at the root of most of our political, social, and industrial troubles? Are not our extortionate tariffs and our swollen combinations and trusts evidence of money madness? . . .
For more than a generation we have been governing this country on the theory that money was more important than justice, that prosperity was more to be desired than principle. We have summoned the poor of all the earth to join us. We have sent women, girls, and children into our thundering mills. We have stripped the farms in order to glut the factories. We have prided ourselves in the figures of our wealth rather than in the knowledge of our freedom, virtue, and happiness.
To be money mad is to be cruel and corrupt. To be money mad is to buy votes and sell laws and traffic in human life and health. To be money mad is to oppress the weak and grind the faces of the poor. To be money mad is to develop a race of bribe takers as well as bribe givers, and to inflict upon the country wolfish poverty side by side with wolfish riches.
The latest proof that we are money mad is presented in the theory now fashionably indorsed that men and women may be honest if they have money, and must necessarily be dishonest without it.
Federal Council of Churches
Several years ago, when there was first organized what is known as the Federal Council of the Churches, it was confidently believed by many that a long step had been taken toward the realization of many worthy ideals. It was believed that this federation would serve very greatly to bring about unity and harmonious cooperation between various churches, and that it would prove a quickening force in the promotion and attainment of various reforms which many churches desired to secure.
It would seem, however, that this arrangement is not promoting the fullest church unity after all, and it is charged that very serious influences are at work committing the council to policies which some of the church bodies composing it can not support. The editor of the Presbyterian of the South, in the issue of March 19, 1913, presents the matter in this way:—
At a time when the value and authority of revealed truth are being so widely depreciated in the estimate of religious leaders, and the cry for the submergence of cherished doctrinal beliefs for the sake of bigness and broadness has become so clamorous, it is well for those who love and cherish the eternal truths of inspiration to emphasize them and defend them with unwavering fidelity. The advocates of a merely humane fraternity, the culture of purely human instincts by purely human methods and appliances, under the guidance of a vague, universally diffused religious sentiment or influence, are demanding not only recognition but leadership.
In the accomplishment of this purpose it is their ambition to secure the following of the evangelical forces of the organized church, as well as their own school of rationalistic religionists. They are prosecuting this purpose with increasing energy and with an audacity that is little less than startling. Their latest achievement in prosecuting their ambitious purpose was the capture of the Federal Council. Evangelical churches must squarely face the question whether they will consent to align themselves with the prevailing skepticism, or will hold uncompromisingly to the authority of the gospel by withholding organic fellowship.
The situation is becoming clear to the expositors of religious thought and activity; warnings are being sounded and counsel freely given. The following from the Presbyterian of Philadelphia impresses us as being most timely and wise:—
“THE FEDERAL COUNCIL.— It has been generally recognized among the evangelical churches that the Federal Council has been captured, body and soul, by the so-called liberal or higher critical men. They have elected as president Dr. Shailer Mathews. They choose such speakers as Professor Steiner, who says that Daniel is a bundle of myths. The various commissions are made up chiefly of men who are leaders in liberal thoughts. This matter has received considerable attention in some of the leading religious journals. Conspicuous among these are the Presbyterian Standard, the Presbyterian of the South, the Christian Observer, of the Southern Presbyterian Church, and our honored colleague, the Herald and Presbyter. All these seem to be of one mind as to the defection from faith of the Federal Council. All raise the question, What should be done? The Presbyterian of the South and the Standard are decided that true evangelicals should withdraw from the council. The Christian Observer and the Herald and Presbyter seem to be of the opinion that the evangelicals should remain in the council, and fight.
“We are in sympathy with the withdrawal. Little good is to be accomplished by remaining in an organization for the sake of contention. The purpose of the council was to unite the different bodies on the ground which they hold in common, in order that they might contend against a common foe. If evangelicals remain in the connection and keep silent, then the council shifts its purpose, and becomes a mere propaganda of false teachings. If they remain in the council and fight, then the house, divided against itself, can not stand. To stay in, therefore, in either case means defeat of the original purpose, and worse, the fostering of false doctrine, which is more vicious than false practise. The only sane and sensible thing to do is for the truly evangelical to withdraw in peace, and form a federation of those truly loyal to the Word of God.”
The highest quality of Christian charity is that which extends cordial appreciation to all that is praiseworthy in the thought and deeds of others, but to the propagandists of error will give “place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue.” It remains to be seen whether the church will be true to its trust, or will allow itself to be held in the bonds of an alliance in which its cherished faith is scorned, and the words and offices of its Lord are repudiated.
Note and Comment
Divorce for Anybody Who Has the Price
THE Continent of March 13, 1913, is responsible for the following:—
In spite of all the honor it would do the Catholic Church to be really consistent in its professed opposition to divorce, the hierarchs at Rome can not resist the request of any rich Catholic who is tired of a former marriage for permission to marry again. And so the pretense of believing that marriage is a sacrament that only death can dissolve is repeatedly trampled on by the church's own highest leaders. Of course, nominal divorce is refused, but for any Catholic who has money an annulment of marriage can always be effected.
The shame of this duplicity has just been conspicuously shown again. American Catholic papers have lately been boasting that the inability of Count Boni de Castellane to get a divorce from his wife, Anna Gould, was a sign of the rigid honesty of the Vatican in regard to its antidivorce principles. Castellane, they said, has money and prestige, but he can not break the rule. But most unhappily for the editors who made this argument, the case which they chose as a test turns out the other way, and for some trivial reason or other—of course a Roman ecclesiastic can always find a reason for doing what he wants to—Count Boni's petition is granted, and while his former wife still lives, he is set free from his first marriage to contract another, as he doubtless intends.