Christian herald., November 09, 1883, Page 2, Image 2

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That there is a natural desire in
the human heart to worship some
person or thing the various reli­
gions of the world, ' including all
nations, fully attest. This is also
evident from the teaching of the
Scriptures. Go where you may,
among the civilized or uncivilized
nations of the earth, and you will
find *11
worshippers. Every
cable alike to all responsible crea­
tures, that has no exceptions.
But what is idolatry in the light
of the Scriptnres ? It is subjective.
It is excessive attachment or vene­
ration. It.is undue respect paid to
any person or thing. It is the
worship of idols. If you ask for a
Scripture■■.de^mtion> you have one
er things, is idolatry. And again,
Eph. 5: o, he calls a coveteous man
an idolater. The Greek word for
covetousness occurs several times
in--4heGreek
means a lover of money; one who
craves wealth. It is one who
hoards wealth for the mere sake of
gain, and whose whole heart and
time center on money-making.
The following from Luke 12 : 13-21,
is a striking example of idolatry:
“ And one of the company said un­
to him, Master, speak to my broth­
er, that he divide the inheritance
with me. And he said unto him,
man, who made me a judge or a
dividpr over you ? And he said
unto them, Take heed, and be­
ware of covetousness; for a man’s
life consisteth not in the abundance
of 'the things which he possesseth.
And he spoke a parable unto them,
saying, The ground of a certain rich
man .brought fourth plentifully.
And he thought within himself,
saying, what shall I do, because I
“Have nO room where to bestow my
fruits ? And he said this will I do;
I will pull down my bams, and
build greater, and there will I be­
stow all my fruits and my goods.
' And I will say to my soul, soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for
many years ; take thine ease, eat,
heathen ; and how we do pity them,
and shed tears over their lamenta-
dHe condiit^ftF -And y'0t"lto. fiiignL
that the idolatry practiced daily at
our own doors and in our churches
is almost as prevalent and equally
as heinous in the eyes of God as the
idolatry practiced in the darkest
corner of India or Southern Africa.
We would have it distinctly under­
stood that the terms heathen and
idolator are not svnonvinous
terms
V
«/
by ftnT
11
be idolaters ; but it is none the less
true that manj’ who are not heath­
ens are nevertheless, idolaters. Civ­
ilization, enlightenment and even a
high degree of refinement and cul­
from idolatry. The objects of .idol­
atry are both objective and sub­
jective, and hence are many. An
the sun,
or some of the animals and creep­
ing things of earth. Or it may be
our.wealth, our natural ability, our
acquired knowledge or skill, or ev­
en the outward adornment of the
person. Upon whatever the heart
is fixed to the exclusion of the God
of heaven, it is immaterial how lit-
person is-an idolater. Idolatry dif­
fers only in the *thilig idolized, not
in the sin committed. The wor­
ship of the sun or the serpent
amang the heathen is no more a
crime with God that covetousness
in the American churches; and
^hiTU~WeseTld^lfflsl:rtonaricsriTTth e
former, w<* should not forget the
conversion of the latter.
CURIOUS JOURNALISM.
During the last year we have met
with some strange features of jour­
nalism, particularly among those
professedly Christian papers. It
has its origin in a peculiar disease
to which editors are subject and
affects alike both head and heart.
It is rather violent in its last stage
but usually of short duration. It
is not contagious and may be
avoided altogether bv the obser-
vance of proper preventives; and
in case of attack, a well known an­
tidote is all that is necessary to
save the patient. Whether it is
confined to this coast or is becoming
general we arc not able to stale.
Suffice it to say that it is a stranger
to us, and we are thankful that we
are still able to learn. This disease
has manifested itself toward the
H erald in different ways. Its first
symptom is considerable boasting;
and’when criticised, developes itself
into long tirades of misrepresenta-
C j .
v
tions and hard epithets wholly ir­
relevant and contain neither sense
nor grace; Then when it iajre-
buked, it refuses to let the people
see anything others may write. It
is willing to debate, but is deter­
mined that its readers shall see
but one side. In its still more ad­
vanced stage, when met with unan­
swerable facts and arguments, it
shows itself by cutting our ex­
change. Of course that is an end
of further investigation, and so we
Perhaps one of its most curious
manifestations is the irregularity of
the mails. How tins disease can
affect the mails is not so plain at
first. but simple enough when -pra=.
matter to tell when an
hus afflicted, or whether
hr lies in another d b'etifivii.
Of course when a man positively
disavows being under its influence,
that settles it. We were fearful
that our good brother of the Pacific
Church News was having a slight
attack ; but his explanation came
just in time to save him. As our
readers will remember, last summer
remark about the missionary work
in California without any allusion
whatever to the News.
Upon
seeing this our brother allowed
himself to indulge in some advice
pertaining to our Oregon enter­
prises concerning which he knew
in—the
moon. We made no reply at the
time, but afterward it came in our
way to criticise some position of
the Necos. Just at the time we ex­
pected something to l>e said about
the H erald , the mail from that
office became irregular. Our other
mail from California however came
as usual. Of course we understand
that the trouble was in the mail and
not in the News office, and would
not do our brother the injustice to
state otherwise. We are only look­
ing at the curious features in reli­
gious journalism. We .-had good
reason to think that the H erald
had been advertised. But no News
came for
near two months.
Then again the mails got regular.
In the meantime we wrote Bro.
Ware for the missing numbers. It
now turns out that he had sure