Malodorous: Lecturers on Crime and New Converts as Leaders
Under the above heading, the Christian Weekly of May 22, 1880, speaks of two bad practices. The first is “that of persons who have been charged with crime, upon their discharge or acquittal, setting up as lecturers on their sensations while undergoing trial, or upon circumstantial evidence, and the like.” A case of this kind recently occurred in New York City where the receipts of the lecture were $25, and the expenses $117. If all are treated in this way, the practice will soon go into disuse. Of the second practice the editor speaks as follows:— Analogous to the practice we have just condemned is one that we fear has gained a wider currency, and which, as it seems to us, is equally malodorous. It is the practice that obtains in some quarters, of putting forward as leaders and guides those who have just professed conversion from the ways of sin. It is right to rejoice profoundly over any one rescued from the “horrible pit and from the miry clay.” There are, doubtless, circumstances where the “testimony” of such a one to the power of grace is of great value. A modestly told “experience” has power in moving others. But when such persons are allowed to elbow aside men whose whole lives have been clean, and who have been years under discipline in the school of Christ, whatever may be the effects for the time being, the ultimate result will be only disastrous. It is nothing of which to boast, as some of these of whom we speak seem inclined to do, that one has been steeped in sin. But the cases are not few in which the boast seems to be—not the all conquering grace of God, but the depths of the pit in which one has been wallowing. The natural result from this is spiritual pride, arrogance, and a sort of contempt for those who have not passed through the same bitter experience. Paul exhorted Timothy to “lay hands,” as setting apart to official work in the church of Christ, “suddenly on no man.” In another place, in mentioning the characteristics of a minister in the church, he says he is to be “not a novice [margin, one newly come to the faith], lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” It would be well if some Christian workers held these cautions in mind.