Basic HTML Version
Chapter 31—The Coming Conflict
The greatest and most favored nation upon the earth is the United
States. A gracious Providence has shielded this country, and poured
upon her the choicest of Heaven’s blessings. Here the persecuted
and oppressed have found refuge. Here the Christian faith in its
purity has been taught. This people have been the recipients of
great light and unrivaled mercies. But these gifts have been repaid
by ingratitude and forgetfulness of God. The Infinite One keeps
a reckoning with the nations, and their guilt is proportioned to the
light rejected. A fearful record now stands in the register of Heaven
against our land; but the crime which shall fill up the measure of her
iniquity is that of making void the law of God.
Between the laws of men and the precepts of Jehovah will come
the last great conflict of the controversy between truth and error.
Upon this battle we are now entering,—a battle not between rival
churches contending for the supremacy, but between the religion
of the Bible and the religion of fable and tradition. The agencies
which will unite against truth and righteousness in this contest are
now actively at work.
God’s holy word, which has been handed down to us at such a
[399]
cost of suffering and blood, is but little valued. The Bible is within
the reach of all, but there are few who really accept it as the guide
of life. Infidelity prevails to an alarming extent, not in the world
merely, but in the church. Many have come to deny doctrines which
are the very pillars of the Christian faith. The great facts of creation
as presented by the inspired writers, the fall of man, the atonement,
and the perpetuity of the law of God, are practically rejected by
a large share of the professedly Christian world. Thousands who
pride themselves upon their wisdom and independence regard it an
evidence of weakness to place implicit confidence in the Bible, and
a proof of superior talent and learning to cavil at the Scriptures, and
to spiritualize and explain away their most important truths. Many
ministers are teaching their people, and many professors and teachers
267