ent it has been recited in different forms. On this point the woman was unfortunately ignorant.
To most people such ignorance will appear to be a matter of little importance. "It will not cause the woman to lead an evil life; there is little danger that she will come to believe in purgatory; and even if she entertains fanciful interpretations of I Peter 3:19, what harm will it do?"
Now it must be granted that the illustration gives a rather minor instance of ignorance. It is hard to imagine any great harm resulting from the lack of this one piece of information. On the other hand, do we not all admit that, in general, ignorance is undesirable? And is it not possible that the lack of several pieces of information, even if each by itself is minor, could result in a moderate amount of harm?
Let us choose another illustration. Not long after the conversation with that woman, I was studying the relation of the church to the state. It is an important problem. Now, of course, I am not as other men, or even as this ignorant woman; I study twice in the week, and give attention to all the books I possess; and this I have done from my youth up. But when I read Aaron's Rod Blossoming by George Gillespie, and some other works by that remarkable young man, I could only lower my eyes from heaven to earth, smite on my breast, and cry, God be merciful to me an ignoramus.
The course of church history, like the charts of the stock market, has its peaks and depressions. After the deep abyss of Romish ignorance and superstition there came a great discovery of God's truth in the sixteenth century. At an astounding rate new knowledge of the divine revelation was discovered by the leaders and taught to the populace. The culmination of those times of refreshing is enshrined in the Westminster Confession. But since then there has been a fairly steady process of forgetting. What in that day was a compendium for children, the Shorter Catechism, is today more than ample for a seminary graduate requesting ordination of Presbytery. And is there any twentieth century Jenny Geddes ready to throw her stool at some prominent neo-orthodox moderator? Does our present day Mrs. Geddes know what neo-orthodoxy is? For that matter, does she know what orthodoxy is?
From the time of the apostles to the present moment, there has been no revival of true religion remotely approaching the Protestant Reformation. The conspicuous difference between that age and all others is the amount of Biblical information. Even in the Middle Ages there must have been, and in modern times too there undoubtedly are, men of zeal, humility, and devotion. But the Reformers knew the Scripture in great detail and understood its implications. They took great pains to teach exactly what God had revealed. Would not a rediscovery of this truth today produce results similar to those of the Reformation? And what survey of Biblical teaching is a better guide than the Westminster Confession?
Did you say that you have never read it? Then get a copy immediately.
Are We A Christian Nation?
J. Edgar Hoover, Chief of our F.B.I., reveals some very shocking facts in Crimes in America. He says that: "People spend eight times more hours at movies than at Sunday School; Only one out of 12 persons in our country attends Church; Seven out of eight children quit Church and Sunday School attendance before they reach 15 years of age; Fifteen million sex magazines are printed monthly and read by one-third of the American People; There are more barmaids in this country than college girls; One million American girls have venereal disease; One hundred thousand girls disappear every year into white slavery; One million illegitimate babies are born annually; There are almost a million illegal abortions performed annually; Our nation harbors three times as many criminals as college students; A major crime is committed every 22 seconds, an aggravated assault or rape every hour; a murder every 40 minutes; There are sixty suicides in our nation daily and three out of ten who start as light drinkers end up drunkards."
