We venture the suggestion that the most depraved human beings are the most superstitious. And that these most depraved and superstitious are the most easily influenced by fear. And while the nominal Church (Papal and Protestant) has included in its membership some of the most intelligent and conscientious of the human family, it has also gathered into its bosom a large class influenced only by fear or present advantage, among whom are some of the most depraved and superstitious, merely held in check—not really converted. It gathered in this last class by the errors it taught notwithstanding its truths, and it gathered in the former class by the truths which it held notwithstanding its errors.
The error which, above all others, has brought this really ungodly, unconverted and superstitious class into the nominal Church (Babylon—mixture—confusion) is, that eternal torture awaits all except the Church, and that to escape that misery, they must join some of the various sects. Invented for the purpose, this doctrine has been a whip which has driven multitudes of the worst elements of society into the nominal Church, and bound and restrained them from immorality, outward evil, though it never converted them into true servants of God, and members of the true Church whose names are written in heaven.
The various sects anxious for numbers, worldly influence, outward show, and forms of godliness, used well the goad of torture, and the shackles of fear, and with such success, that to-day the real saints, the true wheat, the consecrated are few indeed compared with the thousands of fear-bound and unconsecrated which swell the numbers of Babylon. Hence it is that the entire nominal church is rejected by the Lord, and the few who are his are called out of Babylon.
What wonder then, that as these shackles of error break, and give liberty to those hitherto restrained, not by love, but by fear alone, the result should be a great increase of crime; or that this increase is principally among those who were once more or less directly associated with the nominal church. That this is the case, is shown by the following official Parliamentary report of—
THE SECTARIAN AND INFIDEL POPULATION
OF ENGLAND AND
WALES IN 1873.
Church of England...........6,933,935
Dissenters..................7,234,158
Roman Catholics.............1,500,000
Jews........................
57,000
Infidels....................7,000,000
Criminals to every 100,000 population:
Roman Catholics.............
2,500
Church of England...........
1,400
Dissenters..................
150
Infidels....................
5
Jews........................
0
Roman Catholics.............
1 in 40
Church of England...........
1 in 72
Dissenters.................. 1 in 666
Infidels..................1 in 20,000
Total number of criminals in jail:
Roman Catholics.............
37,500
Episcopalians...............
96,600
Dissenters..................
10,800
Infidels....................
350
Jews........................
0
A little season only will intervene between the removal of the shackles of fear and the full establishment of the "kingdom of heaven" and its rule of righteousness: but that little season will be quite sufficient for the overthrow of present systems built entirely or in part upon error. We could not avert it if we would—we should not avert it if we could; hence so many as would be co-workers with God should advocate truth and liberty among the saints, and patience and hope on the part of the world, and so far as lieth in you (consistently with this service of the truth) live peaceably with all men.