PIETY BY PROXY | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 26, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 33.

PIETY BY PROXY.

THERE is a craze for doing all duties and curing all evils by proxy. Rich Christians try to do their charity by checks and other substitutes, and poor Christians leave all the praying and teaching and working to the pastor and his appointed assistants. The theory that every man has personal duties that no one can do for him is quite exploded, and the Romish idea that the church and the priest can settle all religious matters, private and public, is popular.

As a natural result of such opinions, we find that many persons rely upon law to take their place in all public responsibility. A few men are elected or appointed to official positions, and thousands at once surrender all their interests and relinquish all their civic duties to these representatives. The claims of morality upon every individual, to use influence and force of character and self-denying effort in favor of right and justice and honesty and temperance, are ignored because there are laws to establish and enforce these claims. There are laws against all offenses, and police and magistrates to execute them, and therefore the average citizen is satisfied. If the law is broken or not enforced, it is no concern of the citizen, but only of the official. It is the duty of the individual to prevent intemperance in his family and among his servants, but instead of doing his personal duty to those dependent upon him he prefers to place this duty upon the law-makers and charges them to prevent drunkenness by prohibitory law. Law has potency because it can punish, but it has no saving or reformatory power.

The best prohibitory laws cannot prevent a man from becoming a drunkard, but how many men have been saved by the personal influence of a devoted wife, a loving sister, or a faithful friend. What the law can never do, the unselfish, fearless and loving Christian has power to accomplish. The triumphs of the gospel of Christ from the time of the apostles have been signal examples of personal power under divine inspiration. And while we remove temptation from every pathway by legislation, and punish crime by legal enactment, we should never forget that this is not piety and cannot take the place of individual effort to save the sinner and reform the erring.

Throughout society we see this growing tendency to shirk personal duty and to shrink from individual efforts. To societies, laws, associations, and substitutes are entrusted the performance of religious, charitable, social, and patriotic duties. As a consequence, selfishness grows and perilous times are at hand.—N. Y. Observer.