Editorial October 22, 1910 Issue

"BE YE STEADFAST, IMMOVABLE"

John B. Willis

THERE are few virtues that are in greater demand today than that of simple steadfastness. One is continually meeting with evidences of the subjection of human thought to the domination of impulse. Being governed as yet in large part by the testimony and the desires of material sense, the average individual, though altogether well-meaning, is more or less subject to the tides and cross-currents of that sense, and hence is carried hither and thither in a course which is neither intelligent nor intelligible.

It is to this anchorless and motorless type of mentality that St. Paul refers in his letter to the Ephesians, when he speaks rebukingly of those who are "children, tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait'to deceive." In kindred terms St. James declares that the "double-minded" man is "like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed;" and he adds, "Let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord."

This last rather caustic reminder of the apostle should direct thought to the probable explanation of the unsatisfactoriness, the unanswered prayers and general inadequacy of the life of many would-be Christians. And the reasonableness of the explanation can but appear when we think of how fatefully foolish would be the chemist or astronomer who was in the habit of making one undemonstrated theory after another the basis of his investigations, instead of adhering continuously to the unvarying law of optics, or molecular affinity,—how absolutely sure his failure. It is just here that the glamour of that asserted "spirit of liberality" which gives welcome to all manner of beliefs and opinions, works for the dissipation and demoralization of thought, the serious hurt of those who are influenced by it.

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