The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 377

As his work tended to build up the churches, it was for a time
regarded with favor. But as ministers and religious leaders decided
against the advent doctrine and desired to suppress all agitation of
the subject, they not only opposed it from the pulpit, but denied their
members the privilege of attending preaching upon the second advent, or
even of speaking of their hope in the social meetings of the church. Thus
the believers found themselves in a position of great trial and perplexity.
They loved their churches and were loath to separate from them; but
as they saw the testimony of God’s word suppressed and their right to
investigate the prophecies denied they felt that loyalty to God forbade
them to submit. Those who sought to shut out the testimony of God’s
word they could not regard as constituting the church of Christ, “the
pillar and ground of the truth.” Hence they felt themselves justified in
separating from their former connection. In the summer of 1844 about
fifty thousand withdrew from the churches.
About this time a marked change was apparent in most of the
churches throughout the United States. There had been for many years
a gradual but steadily increasing conformity to worldly practices and
customs, and a corresponding decline in real spiritual life; but in that
year there were evidences of a sudden and marked declension in nearly
all the churches of the land. While none seemed able to suggest the
cause, the fact itself was widely noted and commented upon by both the
press and the pulpit.
At a meeting of the presbytery of Philadelphia, Mr. Barnes, author
of a commentary widely used and pastor of one of the leading churches
in that city, “stated that he had been in the ministry for twenty years,
and never, till the last Communion, had he administered the ordinance
without receiving more or less into the church. But now there are
no awakenings, no conversions, not much apparent growth in grace in
professors, and none come to his study to converse about the salvation
of their souls. With the increase of

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