Chapter 6: Legal Religion the work to be much troubled with doubts. Their attention is not on that, but on something else, and he cannot get the advantage over them.
21. They manifest great uneasiness at the increasing calls for self denial to do good.
Said an individual, "What will this temperance reformation come to? At first they only went against ardent spirit, and I gave up that, and did very well without it. Then they called on us to give up wine; and now they are calling on us to give up our tea and coffee, and tobacco; where will it end?" This class of persons are in constant distress at being called on to give up so much. The good that is to be done does not enter into their thoughts, because they are all the while dwelling on what they have to give up.
It is easily seen why it is that these aggressive movements on the kingdom of darkness distress such person. Their object never was to search out and banish from this world everything that is dishonorable to God or injurious to man. They never entered upon religion with the determination to clear out every such thing from the earth, as far as they had power, and as fast as they were convinced that it was injurious to themselves or others, in soul or body. And therefore they are distressed by the movements of those who are truly engaged to search out and clear away every evil.
These persons are annoyed by the continually increasing calls to give for missions, Bibles, tracts, and the like. The time was, when a rich man gave twenty-five dollars a year to such things, he was thought to be doing pretty well. But now there are so many calls for subscriptions and contributions, that they are in torment all the time. "I don't like these contributions, I am opposed to having contributions taken up in the congregation, I think they do hurt." They feel specially sole at these agents. "I don't know about these beggars that are going about." They are obliged to keep giving all the time, in order to keep up their character, or to have any hope, but they are much distressed about it, and do not know what the world is coming to, things are in such a strange pass.
As you raise the general standard of living in the church, this class of professors find they have to come up too, lest their hopes should be shaken. And the common standard of professors has been raised already so much, that I have no doubt it costs this class of persons new four times as much of what they call religion, to keep up a hope, as it did twenty years ago. And what will become of them if there are to be so many new movements and new measures, and so much done to save the world? The Lord help them, for they are in great distress!
22. When they are called upon to exercise self-denial for the sake of doing good, instead of being a pleasant thing, it gives them unmingled pain.
Such a one does not know anything about enjoying self-denial. He cannot understand how self-denial is pleasant, nor how anybody can take pleasure in it, or have joy of heart in denying himself for the sake of doing good to others. That, he thinks, is a height in religion to which he has not attained. Yet the true friend of God and man, whose heart is fully set