270
Fundamentals of Christian Education
should have been firm and unwavering in their testimony, at the very
time when it should have been made manifest that their souls were
riveted to the eternal Rock, when they should have been able to inspire
faith in those who were doubting, they made admission of their own
uncertainty as to whether the word of God or the discoveries of science,
falsely so called, were true. Those who were truly conscientious have
been made to waver in their faith because of the hesitation of those
who were professed expositors of the Bible when they dealt with the
living oracles. Satan has taken advantage of the uncertainty of the
mind, and through unseen agencies, he has crowded in his sophistries,
and has caused men to become befogged in the mists of skepticism.
Learned men have given lectures in which have been mingled truth
and error; but they have unbalanced the minds of those who leaned
toward error instead of toward truth. The nicely woven sophistries of
the so-called wise men have a charm for a certain class of students; but
the impression that these lectures leave upon the mind is that the God
of nature is restricted by His own laws. The immutability of nature
has been largely dwelt upon, and skeptical theories have been readily
adopted by those whose minds chose the atmosphere of doubt, because
they were not in harmony with God’s holy law, the foundation of His
government in heaven and earth. Their natural tendency to evil made
it easy for them to choose false paths, and to doubt the reliability of
both the Old and the New Testament’s records and history. Poisoned
with error themselves, they have watched every opportunity to sow
the seeds of doubt in other minds. Nature is exalted above the God of
nature, and the simplicity of faith is destroyed; for the foundation of
[330]
faith is made to appear uncertain. Befogged in skepticism, the minds
of those who doubt are left to beat on the rocks of infidelity.—
The
Youth’s Instructor, January 31, 1895
.
[331]