The estimate formed of the state of religion in the present day will, of course, entirely depend on the views we form of what true religion is, and on the standpoint we occupy when we examine the religious aspect of society. If we think of religion as embodied in the men who profess it, if we judge of it entirely by the attainments in the knowledge and experience of its living representatives, our estimate of its present state must not, we fear, be a very favourable one. As compared with the divines of other days, what dwarfs are those who represent the theological attainments of the present!
Messages from the Lord are always true and seasonable, whether his words are those of rebuke or those of comfort. In each case too, the authority of the message is divine, and should not therefore be challenged. And the tenor of the messenger’s feelings must be according to the words which he speaks in the name of the Lord to his own generation, which was in a sadly degenerate condition. Its spiritual state, and the kind of message which the Lord gave him to deliver, caused his being distinguished as “the weeping prophet.” In times of backsliding, all who speak in the Lord’s name, and according to His mind, must be like him. The view which they have of the times they live in, and the kind of message which the Lord directs them to deliver combine to make them sad. The woeful condition of things around them casts its dark shadow on their face, and causes the gloomy and austere aspect for which they are condemned by those whom the Lord constrains them to rebuke.
