Evolutionism in the Pulpit 95 mining the faith of the Church while accepting its pay. For it is noticeable that however great their change of attitude toward the Scriptures and the doctrinal standards of the churches they are supposed to serve may be, no change is ever perceptible in the attitude of these gentlemen toward the acceptance of the salaries paid by these churches. And this despite the fact that, according to their own witness of them selves, their strong point is the possession and preaching of a very superior quality of ethics (?). Indeed, in listening to them one can hardly escape the conviction that righteousness, personal and civic, was a thing almost unknown before their advent. Certainly no one can blame the ordinary individual who, unskilled in the intellectual subleties and plausible sophistries by which these gentlemen seek to justify their course, finds a feeling akin to disgust taking possssion of him as he listens to their talk about being “governed solely by a desire for truth”, in their actions in this matter, and of the “tenfold greater comfort, pleasure and profit” they derive from read ing their polychrome Bibles; all of which, to his untrained and practical mind, sounds like unmitigated pharisaical cant. It is like a man who, having taken away all the foundation under his house save a few slender props, lies down in it de claring that he does so with a sense of security and peace to which he had been a stranger before. Apparently the wild guesswork of a profligate and infidel like Astruc, or the equally wild philological speculations of a skeptic like Wellhausen, have more weight with these seek ers after truth than has the “thus saith the Lord Jehovah” of the inspired prophets, or the testimony of the Son of God, and of His apostles. Moreover, they seem to completely ignore, and to be utterly unable to testify from personal ex perience to, the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit work ing upon men’s hearts through the Word. Far better would it be for all concerned if these ministers
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