The Central Presbyterian

Worldliness a Subtle Enemy.

Worldliness is a great curse of the Church. Its evils are vividly pictured by Jesus in the parable of the sower: "And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up and choked them." Worldliness has two methods for storming the soul—the open assault and the hidden mine. The latter is if anything, more dangerous. Worldliness, is, then, a pervasive, insinuating influence—an influence that lowers ideals and sets base standards of judgment. As Drummond has put it, life in this world "may not mean pursuing worldly, pleasures, or mixing with worldly sets; but a subtler thing than that—a silent deference to worldly opinion, an almost unconscious lowering of religious tone to the level of the worldly-religious world around." How does this subtler form of worldliness work? We can best illustrate by supposing a case. Here is a young man of godly parents. Breathing an atmosphere of religious culture, he is early led to faith in Christ. As he approaches manhood, the peaceful surroundings of his youth are exchanged for college or foreign travel. Now he meets with men who, though they may sneer at religion or but nominally profess it, are yet men of bright intellect, of unquestionable probity. He is fascinated; he suffers loss of religious fervor. Many of the writers, whom he now learns to admire, exert, perchance, a like evil influence. He sees in them the heroic struggles of unaided human nature, and the generous longings of the natural heart, depicted in glowing colors, and genuine religious experience left out of account or critically treated as a product of temperament simply. It is a dangerous crisis. If the young man be thoughtful and conscientious, a severe mental struggle is sure to follow. Is a deep, religious experience necessary? Must he live up to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount? Other men have been successful, respected, beloved, and yet not deeply pious. Why not imitate them? Such and kindred questions keep his mind in a turmoil of agitation. It is, indeed, a time of languishing in the dungeons of Doubting Castle. So long as our young Christian was refreshed by the soft airs that play about a religious home he prospered. Now that the raging tempest of worldliness has enveloped him, can he stand firm? My God help all such in the hour of need! Well for him if there be a godly man near by to lend a helping hand. Well for him if he appeal in his agony of doubt to the holy word, wherein dwelleth the truth, a satisfying portion to the soul. Well for him if he flee for refuge to Him that can solve every doubt. May he apply the words of Mrs. Browning to himself: "Thou who hast thyself Endured this fleshhood, knowing how as a soaked And sucking vesture it can drag us down, And choke us in the melancholy deep, Sustain me that with Thee I walk these waves Resisting! breathe me upward, Thou in me Aspiring, who art the Way, the Truth, the Life."

Those are certainly destitute of the spirit of the gospel, who are for anathematizing and rooting out by violence and persecution, all that are not of their mind and way, and that cannot in conscience say as they say, and do as they do.

Victory will surely be possessed by the most persevering.

Hope is a valueless delusion without energy of character.

Grace to separate from evil-doers is one of the things that accompany salvation.