“It is well nigh impossible to enter a single professed Christian family in Europe or America in which some member has not a new patent on Scripture [pg 472] truth and holds some fanciful notion concerning the serious teachings of the Bible. I find a great many passages in which the last form of testifying for God's saints will be that of their faith in the simple plain old doctrines of God's Word. Jesus warns us that just before his coming every possible heresy and every variety of false Christ will appear to deceive the people, and that if it were possible they should deceive the very elect. And John in Revelation tells us of an era of the going forth of frogs, which are evil spirits, to seduce the people from the true faith. We are living in the frog era. In nearly every city in the land there are from one to three persons who claim to be God, or an incarnation of Christ, or the Holy Spirit. Thousands of religious people think it is too tame and uninteresting to accept all of the plain old doctrines of the Scripture, so they want something original and startling.”
In the past two years the popular religious bodies, including an aristocratic ministry, have turned to worldliness at a rapid and unprecedented rate, and what will be seen of proud formalism, socialism, and rejection of divine truth in the circles of denominationalism within the next ten years would now appear incredulous.
The following poem selected from a recent religious periodical is vividly descriptive of the present-day religious denominations, commonly known as churches. However the true church of God is an entirely different [pg 473] institution, and just as far separated from the world, and just as bitterly hated by her as when she imprisoned, stoned and martyred her devoted followers.
The Church Walking With The World.
"The Church and the World walked far apart,
On the changing shores of time;
The World was singing a giddy song,
And the Church a hymn sublime.
'Come, give me your hand,' cried the merry World,
'And walk with me this way;'