AMERICAN MORALS

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 14, 1868

From a review of a volume recently written by J. T. Peck, D. D., entitled “The Great Republic,” which we find in the N. Y. Methodist of April 4, 1868, we copy the following significant paragraph:

“No great event happens to one people, which does not thrill the nations to the remotest ends of the earth. Not a step upward or onward is taken by one people, but the mass of humanity is moved by it. And in the future this will be the case to a far greater extent than in the past. We are to be, and are being, acted upon by other nations no less than we act upon them. The vices of the most vicious European capitals have become domesticated in our large cities. New York, the heart of the nation, whence the currents flow to the remotest extremities, rivals Paris in open profligacy, and may soon reach the point to which Pompeii and the cities of the plain attained. Fraud and corruption are so common as scarcely to excite comment in our halls of legislation and on the judicial bench, while drunkenness and debauchery pervade all ranks of our public service. A season passed in the capital of the nation, or of any State, could excite only deep foreboding for the future of any people ruled by such men as are too many whom we send to make our laws. The venality of the secular press is such that only the initiated can derive reliable information concerning political or financial affairs. We have great hope of the future, but it is only because we believe in the general preponderance of good over evil, and in the assurance that, sooner or later, the earth shall be given to the Son for his inheritance.”