| Show RELIGIOUS FADS I I Scattered along the shores of time the receding century Just closed left many religious fads When we think of the wonderful strides forward and upward the Christian nations have taken under the Influence of orthodox Christianity it Is a matter for wonder won-der and astonishment that there should be any hospitality shown these novelties novel-ties In heterodoxy Yet they have all secured adherents and some of them very large followings And the remarkable re-markable thing about their followings Is that they to a very considerable extent ex-tent are drawn from the ranks of the orthodox believers We hear various explanations of the origin of these new candidates for tho faith of the people and of the marked hospitality with which some of them have been received even In the most enlightened Christian communities First w e have the explanation of the apostles and prophets of the nev re lIglons themseives which are altogether complimentary to the new religions and wholly uncomplimentary to the old From their standpoint the world has just gotten Its first glimpse of the real sureenough truth Hitherto the whole world has been plunged In deepest darkness groping after the gem of purest ray serene which now for tho very first time since the dawn of creation cre-ation Is revealed In the variant forms of these antagonistic fads in religion Orthodoxy has its explanation which takes its color from the common Creed of Christendom Skepticism also has Its explanation but the skeptic is more 01 less a cynic and this fact detracts from the value of his Judgments There Is a standard by which the truth or falsity of all religions can bo measured In it can be found also the true explanation of the successful propagation pro-pagation of false religions That standard stand-ard Is the word of God especially tho New Testament S Tho Sadducees materialistic sect of the Jews who denied the doctrine of a future life came to Jesus with an hypothetical case of a woman who married in succession seven brothers triumphantly asking Whose wife I shall she be in the judgment His answer to them is the explanation of all hunan hospitality to religious error Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures Scrip-tures It IB Ignorance of the scriptures scrip-tures that makes the people a prey to predatory error While the Bible IB the most familiar of all books It Is at the same time the least Intelligently studied and therefore the most Imperfectly Im-perfectly understood of all books Pauls admonition to his son In the gospel Timothy heeded by all would guard all against falling Into fatal error er-ror Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth Only as It Is rightly divided can It be rightly Interpreted and only as it i Is Interpreted cant can-t be a lamp to our feet and a light to our fpatlvway to savc us from falling fall-ing Into the pitfalls of error Rightly I understood It Is I mi absolute l safeguard I against error In all its forms I l Some mischievous atuddntsHook purls of the bodies of several different species of bugs and deftly Joined them together to-gether thus forming new bug Taking Tak-ing the result of their skill to their old professor they demanded to know what kind of a bug It was Glancing nr It for a moment he replied Gentlemen Gentle-men that is a humbug Thus the man who from an intelligent study of the scriptures knows what the religion re-ligion of Christ Is cannot be deceived by even the most cunningly devised I counterfeits of It much less by the hideous travesties that masquerade In Its name The skilled metallurgist does not mistake pyrites of Iron for true gold neither Is he deceived Into buying gold bricks Many very intelligent welleducated I and pipus people are very Ignorant of the scriptures They have not studied them Intelligently In reading the Bible Bi-ble they have followed blind unreason In opening its pages they take chances I for their guide Some superstitious I people have a habit of standing the Bible on edge and letting it fall open where it will thinking thus to be divinely di-vinely directed to the passage their present particular need requires Here Is a possible result that might be I reached by this method If allowed to fall open several times the book might open each time at one of the following passages Judas went out and hanjjod himself Go thou and do likewise Vhat thou doest do quickly The thing for the church to do for her own protection is to more thoroughly thor-oughly educate her members In the word of God In Ignorance of the Bible lies danger to thc church W H BAGBY Pastor Central Christian Church I |
