Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-03-17
Officers of the Church.

1t is quite a common thing to hear
individuals who are not church MEM
bers. laying at the door Of members Of
the church, and especially church Off
GERS. responsibility for much of the rot
tenness and crookedness that permeates
society.
The complaint comes up something
like this: Look at so and so, he is a
prominent church man, occupies front
seat at every service and has his
mouth in everything that the church
does. Yet everybody knows that he is
not to be trusted in an ordinary bus
mess transaction, his reputation for
common honesty is not good, and he
does things that would be condemned
in men who make no such professions.
How do you expect the people to be
any better than they are with such
men as this for leaders,"
We would not be understood as try
ing to defend any kind Of improper
conduct in any church member or any
church official, and we agree with the
commonly accepted notion that church
members and church officials should
SO conduct themselves as to be fit ex-
amples for other people in all matters
relating to correct and righteous prac-
tices. This is too plain a proposition
to admit of successful contravention;
but we submit that there is no good
logic or common sense behind the pur-
rose for which people generally point
out the unworthiness Of church men,
bers or church officers, viz: the justifi-
cation of themselves.
There is no question Of the fact that
all church members, and church Off
GERS should be honest and upright in
all their dealings and clean and correct
in all their conduct; but in cases where
they do not measure up to these con-
ditions, we are unable to see where or
how their failure should be any justifi-
cation to their critics in the emulation
of their examples.
While it is true that unworthy church
members and unworthy church officers
are discreditable to the churches to
which they belong, they are still more
discredtable to themselves, and there
is no good ground to charge response
bility against the churches. AS mat
ter Of fact not one Of the different
Christian denominations as such stands
for a thing that is wrong or question
able. AS a matter of fact, the tenets
of all of the Christian denominations
are sound and wholesome and the fall
ure Of the individual to live up to those
tenets must not be held as reflection
upon the tenets but rather as a reflec-
ton on the individual.
And as for the man who complains
against the church because individual
members thereof are recreant to their
duty, we think he puts himself in an
unenviable position. He can better
afford to leave off such complaints as
against the church, and apply them
more directly against the moral tur-
pitude of the individuals complained Of,
And it will be better even to leave off
this until he becomes member of the
church himself, for if he is dissatisfied
with the kind of people of which the
church is made up, he certainly cannot
hope to work much Of a revolution from
the outside. Instead Of waiting for the
church to become better, it would be
better move on his part to join and
undertake from the inside such reforms
as he thinks are needed.
But with it all, do not let it be
understood that the people who
compose the church are all what they
should be. There is plenty of mean
ness and hypocrisy in the church.
There are church members and church
officers who do not hesitate to serve
the devil in the livery of heaven. 1t
has always been so and it will be so al
WAYS