A brother has sent me a clipping from the Brown Book, a periodical published in Boston that boasts a circulation of 425,000, which is so characteristic of many present-day infidels that I think it worthy of a passing notice. The writer begins with the following paragraph:

      We are watching with considerable interest, nowadays, the position of the church. Whether we be insiders or outsiders, we are fearing for its future. Like the feudal system of the early centuries, like the monasteries of the Middle Ages, and like the witchcrafts and inquisitions of later days, the world seems to be outgrowing it. It no longer has the grasp upon the general life of the people that it once had.

      I have no doubt that the first statement in this paragraph is true. Infidels have always watched with considerable interest the position of the church. The church's position is that "the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and fornicators and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." If this is true, the infidel and all his pals that are here classed with him have a right to watch the position of the church with considerable interest.

      The next statement, that we, whether insiders or outsiders, are fearing for its future, is not true of "insiders," [357] but it is of "outsiders;" for if the future of the church shall be such as its Lord and Founder predicted, well may they fear for that future. But this writer pretends to fear that the world is outgrowing the church, and about to leave it behind, as it has left behind some of the superstitions of the past. He is like a man growing blind, who thinks that the sun is getting dim. It is the church, if he only knew it, and not the world, that has outgrown monasteries, witchcrafts, inquisitions, etc. Protestant bodies have the credit in history of leading every state in Christendom out of these various things, and of forcing the Roman Catholic Church to abandon them.

      The idea that the church no longer has the grasp upon the general life of the people that it once had, is the offspring of the writer's ignorance, and willful ignorance at that. A much larger per cent. of the population of the United States are now mernbers of Protestant churches than there was fifty years ago; immense inroads have been made by Protestantism into Roman Catholic countries, and millions of people who fifty years ago were idolaters are now humble believers in Christ. More money is given in one year to religious purposes than was given formerly in twenty, and the increased circulation of copies of the Bible is one of the wonders of the modern world. This infidel writer is down in a well, where he is unable to see in any direction but one, and he thinks that the sun has gone down when it ceases to shine into his hole. He is like the man in a steamboat who looked through a window and thought that the bank of the river was sliding away behind him.

      Having settled it that the church is declining, our wise man says: "I like to believe that the reason for this decline of the church lies in the fact that the world, in [358] its every-day working-clothes, has grown better and a bit wiser."

      Undoubtedly the world has grown better and a little wiser. It used to have a great many more infidels in it than it has now, and it owes this change to the church. It has a smaller percentage of ignorant people than it once had, and it owes this to the schools and colleges which have been established by the church. It has a greater number of penitentiaries in which to shut up infidels when they commit crimes; and it is beginning to seriously consider the best way to get rid of such infidels as Czolgosz, et al., before they achieve the logical results of their infidelity. The anarchistic and Haymarket brothers and sisters of this infidel writer are now more closely watched than formerly, and this shows that the world has grown "a bit wiser." And it has grown wiser because the church has been its teacher.

      As all evidence that the world is growing wiser, our essayist says, "Men no longer fear God, or Satan, or the decrees of the church, or threats of eternal punishment." To be truthful, he should have said some men no longer fear these things. But in saying this he would only have said what has always been true; for we read in one of the Lord's parables of a man who neither feared God nor regarded man; and away back in the Old Testament we read of men who had not the fear of God before them. As for Satan, instead of fearing him, many men, especially infidels, have always been so thick with him that he leads them captive at his will, and hides eternal punishment from them until they drop into it. All thoughtful men, however, see so plainly the work of Satan in the lives of infidels, and are so horrified by it, that they hate the devil and try to keep him at a distance. They observe that the devil plays 'possum with [359] unbelievers, convincing them that he is dead till he gets them where he wants them.

      This writer for 425,000 readers goes on with much more of the same sort, but this sort has become such commonplace stuff that intelligent people are not to be fooled by it. You can't catch an old bird with chaff.

[SEBC 357-360]